Mr. Trevor Sargent TD, Minister of State at the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, today presented the Overall National Organic Award 2008 to Glenisk Irish Organic Butter.This new product will be launched onto shop shelves in the coming weeks. The awards, organised by Bord Bia in conjunction with the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, attracted over 100 entries from organic companies nationwide.
Accepting the award, Vincent Cleary, Managing Director, Glenisk, said “We are delighted to receive this award, particularly because our new butter will be the only Irish organic butter on the market. With each new product that Glenisk launches, we aim to achieve the high standard our customers expect, while also growing the organic dairy sector and thus helping to secure the future for the dedicated organic family farms across Ireland. We are grateful to the judging panel for recognising our efforts and to Bord Bia and Minister Sargent for their work to promote organic food in this country.”
The winners were announced today at SHOP, the annual food and drink retail trade event taking place in the RDS, Dublin. The individual category award winners were as follows: best organic grocery product went to Solaris Botanicals Presentation Box of Teas; Lily O’Brien’s Organic Collection won best organic sweet, flour and chocolate confectionary; in addition to the overall award Glenisk Irish Organic Butter won best organic chilled/frozen product and a new category this year best organic meat product was awarded to Oliver Carty’s Organic Loin of Bacon with a Citrus Topping.
Speaking at the ceremony Minister Sargent said “It is encouraging to see the high standard of entries this year and it strengthens my belief that the future is bright for organic food and farming in Ireland. Last month I announced a new scheme to allocate additional milk quota to organic producers, which will allow existing producers to expand their output and also encourage new entrants to organic milk production.”
According to Aidan Cotter, Chief Executive, Bord Bia “These awards seek to recognise and highlight the achievements of Irish producers within the organic sector. Organic food is a growth category in Ireland offering sizeable opportunities for Irish producers. A recent study of the organic market in Ireland has shown that sales have increased by 82% in two years, reaching a value of €104 million in the year to July 2008*.”
The research studied how Irish consumer attitudes and ‘mind sets’ are changing in relation to ethical shopping and organic food. The findings showed ‘organic’ has the greatest recognition of all ethical food labels with 91% of those surveyed stating they are familiar with the term, compared to 50% who are familiar with the term ‘food miles’. The research also found 45% of Irish grocery shoppers had purchased an organic product in the last month, a significant increase from 20% in 2003. Bread, beef, preserves and cheese were highlighted as some of the organic produce most likely to increase in popularity over the coming years.
The 2008 National Organic Awards were open to all products manufactured in Ireland and the products must have organic certification for compliance with EU Regulation 2092/91 from one of the two Irish Organic Certification Bodies. All products must be either currently available on the market or ready for launch.
The independent judging panel included Chairman Dermot O’Connell, Senior Buyer, Tesco; Evan Doyle Proprietor, The Strawberry Tree Restaurant, BrookLodge; Sara McSweeney, Artisan Food Technologist, Teagasc Moorepark; Patrice Ryan, Buyer, Donnybrook Fair; Dr. Trevor Storey; School of Agriculture, Food Science and Veterinary Medicine, UCD and Ross Golden-Bannon, Editor, Food and Wine Magazine.
* Source - TNS Worldpanel