British Cheese Awards Merge With Bath & West Show

The British Cheese Awards were founded in 1994, when 297 cheeses were entered by 97 cheese makers, and numbers increased to 908 entries from 183 British and Irish cheese makers for 2013’s event – totalling 71 per cent of all British cheese makers.

For the 2014 competition, The Bath & West Show will be following The British Cheese Awards’ lead in not be dividing winners into first, second or third positions; instead, the judges will be awarding as many or as few awards as they deem suitable. Also, cheese makers may only enter a cheese once.

Juliet Harbutt, British Cheese Awards founder said, “The British Cheese Awards is coming up to its 20th year, so I decided that for its birthday I’d like to spend a little less time running the awards and more time doing what I love best, which is talking about cheese and educating and training people. It’s got so big that it really needs to be run by people who can help expand it.

“We’ve added some new classes to the competition: butter, crème fraiche and plain yoghurts, because they are very much a part of the dairy industry and are something I’ve never really had room for in the British Cheese Awards. The Bath and West show have a packaging class which we’ve never done before, and this will also be included in the category list. Also, we don’t want to lose the cheddar aspect as this has always been the strongest part of the awards.

“We’re shall be running a competition for the best traditionally displayed or cloth-bound cheese, in contrast to the British Cheese Awards which has always been about what the cheese tastes like rather than looks like. There are lots of visitors to the Bath and West show that love to see all the cheeses, so we want to have one class which is not simply about what the cheeses taste like, but also how beautiful they look – it’s all part of the experience. It’s a craft which runs the risk of being lost and we’d like to reward the people continuing the tradition. We’ll have some very beautiful cheeses on display!”

Alan Lyons, show manager said, “This is a fantastic coup for the Show and is a really exciting development. The Royal Bath and West has been a promoter of cheese throughout its history, setting up the country’s first cheese school in Wells in 1889 and having these awards here continues the tradition of being at the forefront of excellence.”

The awards will be held on Tuesday 27 May, with the judging taking place in the morning and the winners being announced at the Awards Dinner in the evening. The show itself will run from Wednesday 28th May to Saturday 31st May, with over 1,000 cheeses expected.

Another addition to the 2014 awards is a British Cheese Market set to be placed directly opposite the judging area. If you are interested in exhibiting, email sandra.collishaw@bathandwest.co.uk