Last year I wrote about my experience of being one of the Great Taste Award judges and the judging process. If you are thinking of entering this year then you should read it to understand how the judging works.
Peters Yard Crispbread, awarded 2 gold stars in 2010
Being awarded a star (or stars) is fantastic and will give your sales and business a real boost. But what should you think about before entering and which products should you enter? Here’s MY thoughts:
First a reminder of the judging process:
- It’s really intense 4 people have to taste about 25 products in a 2 hour session as well as anything that’s referred over to them the adjudicators table.
- We don’t taste all of one kind of thing together usually so its not all confectionary or all jam or all cake; its ham, chocolate, bread, cake, drinks etc etc. A real mixture.
- Its not a comparative tasting i.e we don’t say oh is X’s pie better than Y’s pie we are looking simply at whether it tastes ‘WOW’
- We don’t know where things are from so packaging is irrelevant. However beautiful your packaging is it doesn’t matter the judges don’t see it.
- We do look at the product before we taste so there is an element of is it visually appealing, is it what we might expect from e.g. a raspberry jam, a Victoria Sponge, a sausage roll.
- Only one person on a table needs to think something good enough for it to be passed to the adjudicators and other tables for further tasting…and confirmation of a star rating or not.
- Its actually very easy to spot what’s good despite the mount of stuff you taste. The good stuff stands out.
So in choosing what to enter the following really matter:
- that it tastes ace
- that it looks the part as a product i.e. not messy or collapsing or soggy
- that its entered in the right category because we know what category it’s in so we do ask is this what someone expects when they pick up a jar of X or buys a slice of Y
- packaging doesn’t matter at all - we don’t see it
So I would say you should:
- enter products that people say WOW at most often
- unless you are simply after feedback (which is potentially worth it because you get feedback on each entry albeit pithy) rather than a star don’t send anything you’ve not perfected in your own opinion (and I think there are better ways to get good feedback in the early stages of developing products)
- if your products comes as a selection pack e.g. chocolates its better to send a particular flavour or two rather than a selection box. Its harder to judge a selection and therefore you might be less likely to get a star
- remember it really is about the wow taste rather than what’s super creative or cutting edge flavour wise so something simple has as much chance of winning as something on trend
- you don’t get marked down for wackiness if we pop it in our mouths and swoon you’ll get stars, simple or cutting edge
- for a small producer an absolute maximum of four entries probably makes sense cost wise so pick your top 4 taste wise and send those, other products can wait until next year. If you only have four products then just enter the best one.
- if your product needs to be matured to taste good make sure you will have enough at the right stage of maturity when the entry has to be sent in for judging. The number of under matured chutney’s and pickles I tasted last year still makes me shudder.
Thats about it – its quite simple really the judges are looking for stuff that tastes amazing, to get three stars though it really is a lot of people swooning.
I look forward to tasting your entries this year when I join the judging panel.
Enter the GTA Awards here.
Photo courtesy of Peters Yard. You can buy their award winning crispbreads in delis and foodhalls across the UK and online.
Peters Yard are a client of Bright Blue Skies Ltd.
bright blue skies founder 
