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Brie de Meaux
by Renard Gillard has been awarded this year's World Champion Cheese
at a special awards ceremony which took place at IFE07, the
International Food and Drink Event on March 19th, presented by Bob
Farrand, National Director of the Guild of Fine Food.
Perhaps the
biggest surprise of the finals was winner of the Fortnum & Mason
trophy for Best English Cheese, the Isle of Wight Cheese Co., beating
the mighty cheddar, stilton and classic cheeses with its Isle of
Wight Blue. The shock being that Producer Richard Hodgson only
started making cheeses in September 2006. Indeed Charles Campion,
Supreme Judge, commented, "On a blind tasting this very nearly
won." Richard comments, "I am completely shocked and
delighted. To win Gold is an achievement considering how long I have
been making cheese, but to go on and win Best English Cheese is
overwhelming"
South African
mascarpone, 29 Spanish Idiazabal, Rogue River Blue from the USA,
Austrian rolled cream cheese and raw milk Welsh Caerphilly all went
head to head with the mighty cheddar this month in the annual taste
challenge for the world's top cheese-makers. The judges sliced,
bored, sniffed and tasted nearly 2,000 cheeses from more than 600
makers worldwide, ranging from tiny artisan producers to large-scale
creameries, to decide which were worthy of bronze, silver and gold
awards. All the gold-winning cheeses were then reassessed to select
20 category winners, including the best English and Welsh cheeses,
and the 2007 Supreme Champion.
Over 130
international experts gathered behind closed doors in London on March
14 to judge the 2007 World Cheese Awards. Cheese-expert judges
included Evening Standard food critic Charles Campion, Amy Lame from
BBC Radio London, Angela Boggiano from Delicious, Trevor Gulliver
from St John, Richard Oxley from Tate, Celebrity Chef Ed Baines, Mark
Hix from Caprice Holdings and Lyndon Gee of Slow Food UK and the Fair
Food Foundation, along with delicatessen owners and wholesale buyers.
Mark Hix
commented: "It's a great feeling being in a white jacket judging
the best cheeses in the world. These awards really do throw up some
great new world class cheeses."
Trevor
Gulliver, from St John adds, "It was a great pleasure to judge
this year's awards, the sheer diversity of the cheeses and their
countries of origin made for a fascinating day and the judging was
quite a hard fought affair but a worthy winner did emerge. It's great
to see that this process still starts with the right raw materials -
that love, care and expertise really do make a difference."
World Champion
winner Catherine Feve representing Renard Gillard, makers of the
winning Brie de Meaux commented , 'I am very proud and honoured to
have received three World Cheese Award trophies for our Brie de Meaux
and believe this will help us to develop our export business, as
England is our 1st export Market. All our efforts to produce a high
quality Brie de Meaux with a high level of quality standards (IFS,
BRC) have been recognised.'
The World
Cheese Awards is organised by the Guild of Fine Food, which
represents more than 1,200 independent delis, farm shops and fine
food suppliers throughout the UK.
Guild National
Director Bob Farrand comments: "The World Cheese Awards are the
cheese Olympics and have the capacity to change the lives of winning
cheese makers. This year we have seen a huge increase in artisan and
speciality cheeses from around the world which we are all very
pleased about. It is true that no other food has its fans so
captivated or passionate."
All Gold,
Silver and Bronze award winners are listed on the Guild's website www.finefoodworld.co.uk.
And there is also a video of judging available on the website.
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