The 67 Dorset food and drink products given a Great Taste Award 2022

The winners of this year's Great Taste Awards (GTAs) have just been announced. This is the highest globally recognised accolade for food and drink, and all products are blind-tasted by a panel of experienced judges. So who has earned their stars in Dorset and impressed those finely honed taste buds?

A judging panel of over 500 food and drink professionals have flexed their finely honed taste buds at this year’s Great Taste Awards (GTA), blind-tasting 14,205 different products from 110 countries.

Judging at one of the Great Taste Award events in the Guild of Fine Foods HQ in Gillingham (Image: Sam Pelly)

Established in 1994, Great Taste is organised by the Guild of Fine Food, who are based in Dorset, and is the world’s largest, longest standing and most respected food accreditation scheme for artisan and speciality food and drink producers – it is the highest global accolade based entirely on taste.

Spoons of honey for a blind taste test at one of the Great Taste Award judging events (Image: Sam Pelly)

Taking place over 90 days in both Dorset, at the Guild of Fine Foods HQ in Gillingham, and London judging venues, a rotating panel of industry expert have taste tested everything from tea, beer and olive oil to cheese, marmalade and ice cream. Only 5,556 products – 39.1% of the total products entered this year – received either a Great Taste 1-, 2- or 3-star award.

One of this year's 500 judges blind taste testing at the Guild of Fine Food HQ in Dorset (Image: Sam Pelly)

The top rating is a Great Taste 3-star, which will have been sanctioned by over 20 expert palates, and this year just 241 products have been awarded this top accreditation, including two from Dorset. Hollis Mead Organic Dairy’s Benville, an organic triple cream Brie style cheese made with their award-winning Dorset grass-fed cow's milk on their farm at Corscombe.

Hollis Mead Organic Dairy won a coveted Great Taste Award 3-star accolade with their Benville cheese, an organic triple cream Brie style cheese made in Dorset (Image: Guild of Fine Foods)

Beanpress Coffee Company Rainbow Juice - the other Great Taste award 3-star winner at this year's event (Image: Guild of Fine Foods)

And Beanpress Coffee Company's Rainbow Juice, using beans roasted at their HQ in Winterborne Kingston.

Ajar Of has won three Great Taste Awards this year, 2-star Jumbleberry Jam with Cassis, and 1-star for Black Garlic Ketchup and Dorset Raspberry Jam (Image: Ajar Of)

Dorset 2-star GTA winners: Jumbleberry Jam with Cassis (Ajar Of); Speculoos Caramel, Molasses & Brown Butter Caramel, 80% Uganda origin hot chocolate flakes (Chococo); Seville Orange Curd Roulade (Lizzie Baking Bird); Guanciale (Capreolus Fine Foods); Dorset Ginger Original, Dorset Ginger Extra Strong (The Dorset Ginger Company); Meggy Moo's Sea Salted Butter, Meggy Moo's Peppered Butter (Meggy Moo's Dairy); Pasteurised Unhomogenised Whole Milk (Madjeston Milk Station); Madagascan Vanilla Gelato, Strawberry Gelato, Brandy Gelato (Baboo Gelato); Shaka Espresso (Bad Hand Coffee); Banu Saffron (Banu Spices); Ecuadorian Dark 72% Chocolate Bar with Natural Peppermint (Purbeck Ice Cream); Dried Donko Organic Shiitake Mushrooms (The Wasabi Company); Properly Bitter Lemon Liqueur, Old Tom Liqueur (Mure Liqueurs).

Guanciale from Capreolus Fine Foods, one of the Dorset 2-star Great Taste Awards winners for 2022 (Image: Capreolus Fine Foods)

Dorset 1-star GTA winners: Black Garlic Ketchup, Dorset Raspberry Jam (Ajar Of); Badger Golden Champion (Badger Beers/Hall & Woodhouse); Cherry Bakewell, Tangerine Dream, Espresso Gelato (Chococo): Organic All Butter Pastry, Vegan Puff Pastry (Dorset Pastry); Ecuadorian Milk 40% Chocolate Bar with Natural Orange (Purbeck Ice Cream); Italian Piedmont Hazelnut and Peruvian Gran Palo Bonbons (Solkiki Chocolatemaker); Spicy Tomato & Caramelised Onion Table Sauce, Hot Garlic Pickle, Cherry with Amaretto Extra Jam (The Cherry Tree); Vegan Brown Sugar Gelato, Lemon Gelato (Baboo Gelato); Smoked Mutton, Dorset Coppa, Dorset Chorizo, Dorset Air-Dried Pork Loin, Rampisham Tingler salami, Dorset Rosette salami, Smoked Venison (Capreolus Fine Foods); Dorset Strained Yoghurt – Fat Free, Dorset Cultured Butter - 2% salt (The Dorset Diary Co); Oak Smoked Dorset Sea Salt, Natural Dorset Sea Salt, Garlic Dorset Sea Salt, Chilli infused Dorset Sea Salt (Dorset Sea Salt Company); Dorset Ginger Rhubarb with a Ginger Kick (Dorset Ginger Co); Yuzucello (The Wasabi Company); Bonneville Ancient Sea Rock Salt (Bonneville Sea Salt Company); Meggy Moo's Dorset Double Cream (Meggy Moo’s Dairy); Organic Natural Kefir, Organic Strawberry Kefir (Hollis Mead Organic Dairy); Just Blackberry liqueur (Mure Liqueurs); The Dorset Sauce Company Hollandaise, The Dorset Sauce Company Tartare Sauce (The Dorset Sauce Company); Banu Tea (Banu Spices); Westbourne Glory sausage, Marmite and Cheese sausage (Peter Treble Butchers); Bomo Roast Option 2, Bomo Roast Organic Decaffeinated Beans (Bomo Roast); Dorset Tea Sunshine Blend (Keith Spicer Ltd); Dorset Pancetta with Rosemary (The Real Cure); Mango Kashmiri Chutney (The Chunky Chutney).

Yuzocello from The Wasabi Company won a GTA 1 star award (Image: The Wasabi Company)
All Great Taste 3-star award-winning products are re-judged to find this year’s regional Golden Fork Trophy winners and Great Taste Supreme Champion 2022 which will be announced at a live awards event at Southwark Cathedral in London on September 5.

Find a full list of all this year's winners at greattasteawards.co.uk/results

Click here to find out who won stars in the GTA's of 2021