SuperValu suppliers scoop 83 awards at this year’s Blas na hÉireann Awards

SuperValu suppliers scoop 83 awards at this year’s Blas na hÉireann Awards

(3rd October, 2021) SuperValu’s suppliers picked up an impressive 83 awards at this year’s Blas na hÉireann awards at the virtual ceremony on Saturday. This brings the total number of awards won by SuperValu suppliers over the last four years up to an incredible 432 awards across SuperValu Own Brand, Signature Tastes and Food Academy. Considered to be the ‘Oscars of the Food World’, the prestigious Blas na hÉireann awards celebrate and reward the very best tasting Irish food and drink products, and the passionate, committed producers who make them.

Following on from a successful year in 2020, this year was again a great success for Ireland’s largest grocery retailer. This year, SuperValu Own Brand and its exclusive brand producers picked up 32 awards– winning 7 Gold, 11 Silver and 12 Bronze.

SuperValu award winners included two prestigious ‘Chef’s Larder’ awards. These were won by McCormack Family Farms’ SuperValu Signature Tastes Growing Pea Shoots and Kepak’s SuperValu Beef Tomahawk Steak. This highly regarded title is awarded for ingredients, specialist products or recipe staples that a chef would find to be a valuable part of their larder.  SuperValu Signature Tastes also took home four Gold for Signature Tastes Potato Gratin of Ballymaguire Foods, Signature Tastes Chocolate Yule Log of Couverture Desserts Ltd, Signature Tastes White Chocolate and Cranberry Bites of Carleton Cakes and Signature Tastes Whole Grain Mustard by Follain. Other Gold award winners included Carton Brothers Ltd’s SuperValu 48 Hour Marinated Irish Rotisserie Chicken, Manor Farm’s SuperValu Irish Free Range Whole Chicken and SuperValu Ham and Cheese Vol au Vent by Prestige Foods. 

It was also a great year for SuperValu’s Food Academy producers who picked up 51 awards – 15 Gold, 17 Silver and 19 Bronze including Roll It Pastry (Meath), Filligans (Donegal), Isle of Crackers (Wexford), Cape Clear Distillery (Cork), Sushi King (Dublin) and Love A Little Sauces (Donegal). Tipperary’s Tullahay Farm won ‘Best New Product’ and a Gold award for their Raspberry Bramble Fruit Flavoured Whey Drink. There were also four winners in the ‘Chef’s Larder’ category for Food Academy including Fancy Fungi Mushrooms (Wexford), Roll It Pastry (Meath), Olly’s Farm (Dublin) & Garryhinch Mushrooms (Offaly).  It was a fantastic day for Fiona and Malcom Falconer of Wexford based Wild About who took home the coveted ‘Supreme Champion’ award, the top accolade in Blas na hÉireann.

Ian Allen, Managing Director, SuperValu said, “2021 has been yet another outstanding year for SuperValu at the Blas na hÉireann awards with a total of 83 awards: including 51 awards for our amazing Food Academy producers. It’s been another great win for our local suppliers and producers at a time when it’s more important than ever to support local and Irish businesses. We are immensely proud of our award- winning brands and it’s wonderful to see the suppliers and producers receive the recognition they richly deserve.”

Now in its 14th year, the Blas Na hÉireann awards is the biggest annual competition for quality Irish produce across the island of Ireland with thousands of products entered hoping to win Gold, Silver or Bronze Awards across 100 food and drink categories. Achieving such levels of quality remains a priority for SuperValu and the retailer is proud to be recognised for delivering the best taste and quality products for its customers. As Ireland’s largest retailer, SuperValu understands the importance of supporting local and is committed to supporting more Irish food producers than any other retailer and in the country. The prestigious awards recognise and celebrate the very best in Irish food and drink and SuperValu’s continued success at the awards, with over 432 accolades in the last four years alone, it shows the commitment SuperValu has to the very best quality Irish food.

-ENDS-

For further information on the Blas na hÉireann awards process log on to www.irishfoodawards.com

For further information:

Caoimhe Butler- FleishmanHillard| Caoimhe.butler@fleishmaneurope.com, 085 111 3766

ABOUT SUPERVALU

SuperValu serves over 2.6 million customers every week and has 223 stores nationwide. Together with its retail partners, SuperValu employs approximately 14,500 colleagues, making it one of the State’s largest private-sector employers. SuperValu continues to source locally wherever possible which helps to sustain 30,000 jobs in the Irish economy.

ABOUT FOOD ACADEMY

SuperValu Food Academy is a unique food business development programme between SuperValu, Bord Bia and the Local Enterprise Offices (LEOs). Participants in the programme receive training in market research and branding, food safety, marketing, finance and business development. Food Academy producers have sold a combined €170 million of produce in SuperValu since 2014, supporting 1,500 jobs in the economy. 

ABOUT BLAS NA HEIREANN AWARDS

This is the 14th year of the Blas na hÉireann awards which are recognised as the biggest annual competition for quality Irish produce across the island of Ireland. The Blas awards are the biggest blind tasting of produce in the country, and the criteria on which the product is judged as well as the judging system itself, which was developed by Blas na hÉireann with the Food Science Dept. of UCC, is now recognised as an international industry standard. Research has shown that the Blas accreditation has the highest recognition amongst Irish consumers and using the award logo on packs encourages shoppers to buy these products. It is their guarantee of a top-quality Irish product. The Blas Awards is a non-for-profit organisation and was founded so that quality benchmarks could be established for Irish produce on a level playing field. Winning at Blas has made a significant business difference to our winners.