Calling all food lovers! Fancy being one of the first to try some of this year’s best tasting food and drink products?
For the first time ever, the Guild of Fine Food is opening the doors of its Great Taste Golden Forks tasting to those outside the food and drinks industry. This annual event, dubbed the “Oscars of the food world” will welcome 200 food-loving members of the public to the special preview, taking place at Southwark Cathedral on the afternoon of Monday 5 September 2022.
This exclusive opportunity invites foodies to taste some of the most delicious food and drink products entered into this year’s Great Taste accreditation scheme, the highest global accolade based entirely on taste.
An amazing opportunity to meet the people behind the products – each tasting table will be manned by the team that made it – visitors will have just over two hours to taste their way through approximately 25 of the food and drink products which are up for nomination this year. These nominations are some of the very best of the 14,000 products subjected to the rigorous Great Taste judging of 2022 – ahead of the winners being announced that evening at the trade-only event.
Christabel Cairns, operations & marketing director at the Guild of Fine Food comments: “We are delighted to be opening our doors to consumers and food lovers for the first time this year with our preview tasting event. We are seeing more and more interest come through from food-loving members of the public, so we thought offering a Golden Fork tasting ahead of the formal ceremony would be the perfect time to welcome this new audience and give them a peek behind the curtain.
“We have big plans to offer more to those who share our passion for delicious, well-made food & drink, and we look forward to more people from around the world joining our food-loving community.”
Key information for the Great Taste Golden Fork tasting event:
Location: Southwark Cathedral, London SE1
Date: Monday 5 September 2022
Time: 2.30pm – 5pm
Tickets available: 200
Ticket price: £45 per ticket, including welcome drink
Tickets will be available to the public in early August, with those in the Great Taste food lover’s community receiving a special pre-sales ticket link. There are only 200 available, so don’t hang around. Sign up here to be amongst the first to receive the pre-sale link: https://gff.co.uk/great-taste-events
More information about the Great Taste Golden Forks awards ceremony (trade-only event)
The annual Golden Forks ceremony celebrates the best food and drink products from each region across the country and internationally, following four months of meticulous Great Taste judging.
The winner from each region will be awarded a prestigious Golden Fork trophy on the night – and there are only ten up for grabs! Plus, there is an ultimate winner, an award for the best 3-star product in Great Taste 2022, aptly crowned The Supreme Champion.
What is Great Taste?
Recognised as a stamp of excellence and actively sought out by food lovers and retailers alike, Great Taste, organised by the Guild of Fine Food, values taste above all else. All products in the line-up for judging are blind-tasted: every product is removed from its packaging so it cannot be identified and is judged purely on taste alone.
This year’s rigorous judging process featured comprehensive blind taste-testing of more than 14,000 products, taking place over 90 days across Dorset and London. This year’s line-up saw food and drink originating from 110 different countries from across the world take part.
Great Taste’s prestigious judging panel is made up of over 500 food & drink professionals, including critics, chefs, recipe creators, buyers, retailers, journalists, broadcasters, and experts in the field. 2022’s judging line-up included head buyers from Selfridges, Whole Foods, Fortnum & Mason and Waitrose, BBC Good Food editor Keith Kendrick, delicious. editor Karen Barnes, Bake Off contestant and author Chetna Makan, MasterChef Professionals finalist Santosh Shah, food and drink consultant Mallika Basu, BBC’s Nigel Barden, national television presenters Lotte Duncan and Juliet Sear, restaurateurs Kavi Thakrar (Dishoom) and Amy Poon (Poon’s), journalists including Felicity Cloake (The Guardian), Xanthe Clay (Telegraph) and Joanna Blythman (multiple national titles), as well food writers Gill Meller, Melissa Thompson, and Georgina Hayden among many others. This experienced panel, each with trusted palates, have together tasted and re-judged the 3-star winning products to crown the Golden Fork trophy winners as well as the Great Taste 2022 Supreme Champion.
