A Celebration of West Country Food

Pork Heaven from Devon, a family-run business based in Tiverton, won the Champion Product award for its Butcher’s Classic Pork Sausages.

In the retail categories, Lyme Regis-based Town Mill Cheesmonger won Best Specialist Retailer, Wells Market was named Best Farmers Market in the South West, and Somerset’s Croscome Village Stores and Plympton’s Gribbles Butchers were also named as winners.

John Sheaves, CEO of Taste of the West said, “it was a marvellous occasion in Bristol last week – to see 300 winners, finalists, judges as well as the great and good drawn from the whole food and drink sector, congregate under one roof to celebrate the very best of the region’s produce and eateries sends a very strong positive message to key markets, both nationally and internationally.

“Our region is absolutely buzzing at the moment, full of innovation and creativity, matched with a professional desire to make things happen”.

“The standard of entries from all the producers and hospitality and retail outlets from across the region has been exceptional and certainly much higher than in previous years. For example the number of restaurant entries which received the coveted Gold award rose from 50% to 64% when comparing 2013 entries to 2014 entries.

“This demonstrates a huge uplift in quality across the range. This is good news for the South West economy as a whole as our ‘offer’ in terms of food and drink is now more diverse and of a higher quality than any other region in the UK let alone Europe.”