An opportunity to be a winner

The Yorkshire Post Taste Yorkshire Food Awards 2011, in association with the York Food & Drink Festival, aims to applaud the people who make a living from growing and baking and brewing and producing world-class foodstuffs.

All the Taste Awards winners will be announced at a dinner at York Guildhall, at the climax to the York festival, which runs at various venues in the city from September 16.

The awards are open to food producers from anywhere within the county who sell their foods commercially. There is no entry fee.

There are six judged categories:

Butchers and meat

Dairy

Growers

Hand-made ( jams, pickles, chocolates, etc)

Local brew

Pies

There is also a Reader Award.

During the festival, the public is invited to tastings of all the products that are shortlisted for the awards and then invited to vote for the ones they think are the best.

The winners of the six judged categories will be decided by a panel headed by Michael Hjort, the director of the York Food Festival. Michael is an independent chef restaurateur of Melton’s and Melton’s Too, in York.

If you are a producer and would like to enter the Taste Awards, this is what to do: Enter quickly and easily online via the Yorkshire Post website. Look for the Taste Awards logo on the homepage of our website: yorkshirepost.co.uk

Alternatively, telephone 0113 238 8956 to request an entry form by post.

Your entry will state who you are, what your product is, where it is sold, why you think you should win. The deadline for entries is Tuesday, July 19. The email address, if required, is michael. hickling@ ypn. co. uk

Postal entries, marked Taste Yorkshire, should be sent to Michael Hickling, Yorkshire Post, Wellington Street, Leeds, LS1 1RF.

These initial entries will be filtered down by the judges to a shortlist of 10 in each category.

If yours is successful, you will be asked to send in your product – or a small range of products – for the judges’ tasting session in August.

The finalists, three in each category, will be published in Country Week towards the end of August.

The winners will be announced at the splendid and convivial awards’ dinner, at the York Guildhall, on September 23.

This event will be followed by two pages of coverage in Country Week on the winners and runners-up and their products.

If you have any queries relating to the awards, please phone 0113 238 8956 to speak to Michael Hickling.

The rules

All Taste Award entry forms must be submitted to the Yorkshire Post by Tuesday, July 19.

Entrants should be producers, not retailers, who make their goods in Yorkshire.

The products must be commercially available at the time of entry. The judges’ decision will be final.

The main focus of York Food and Drink Festival, September 16-25, is to highlight the wealth of quality Yorkshire produce in the region.

It takes place in and around the city’s many historic venues and offers free entry to the markets, demonstration area, beer tent and information point, with a marquee in Parliament Street the central point.

There are also daytime and evening programmes of events in York Guildhall and elsewhere.

This year’s new theme takes its cue from television and is called ‘Dine at My Table’.

This involves the diverse venues, cultures and personalities to be found in the city.

One of the events is a unique opportunity to dine at the table of the Lord Mayor of York.

A four-course, black-tie dinner will be provided by the Feversham Arms, Helmsley, for the meal in York’s splendid 18th-century Mansion House.

Another will be at the table in the home of the 2010 YorkshireVision Curry Contest Winner, Sharmini Thomas.

Festival tickets and information: 01904 466687.