BBC Radio 4 have today (Sunday 5 January 2014) launched the categories for the Food and Farming Awards 2014 and opened nominations.
The awards celebrate the people and organisations in Britain who produce and sell quality food. This year’s judges include two restaurant chefs, a prison cook and a celebrated food blogger who are all leading a BBC mission to find the very best in British food and farming.
Raymond Blanc and Richard Corrigan are being joined by Al Crisci, the founder of the Clink restaurant in Highdown prison; blogger Jack Monroe; cook and writer Valentine Warner and critic and broadcaster Charles Campion on the 2014 judging team.
The judges are calling on nominations to find winners in 10 different categories; Best Food Producer, Best Drinks Producer, Best Food Market, Best Local Food Retailer, Best Takeaway/Street Food, Best Cook, Best Food Initiative, Outstanding Farmer of the Year, the Lifetime Achievement Award and Food Personality of the Year.
Each year the BBC calls on its audiences to nominate someone in their part of the UK for an award.
Richard Corrigan said: “We’re always amazed by the stories that come in to us as judges, and we never know where in the UK the nominations will take us … from visits to cheese-makers and dinner ladies to farm shop owners and national retailers…. but we care about each and every one, the stories are inspiring”.
Nominations open on January 5th, for three weeks only.
Nominations for the awards open today (Sunday 5 January) and can be entered via the BBC Radio 4 Food and Farming website: www.bbc.co.uk/foodawards. Nominations are open for 3 weeks and close on Monday 27th January. Both individuals and businesses can enter can enter all ten categories.
Presenter of the Food Programme and one of the founders of the Awards in 2000, Sheila Dillon encourages nominations: ‘‘They’re your awards which are set up to highlight the achievements of people, mostly working under the media radar, who add to the quality of all our lives.’’
This year for the first time, the BBC Food and Farming Awards ceremony is being held in the new location of Bristol. The winners will be announced at the awards ceremony at St George’s Concert Hall on Thursday 1 May 2014. Shortly after, BBC Radio 4 will broadcast a programme featuring the winners and judges.