The Blas na hÉireann ‘Supreme Champion’ award has gone to The Bretzel Bakery in Dublin for its Pain de Maison Boule and the same company also won the ‘Best in Leinster’ title.

More than 300 of the island’s finest shortlisted agri-food and drink producers competed for awards in various categories.

Celebrating the very best in Irish food and drink, the awards this year ran as a digital event.

Kerry Kefir has been awarded the ‘Best Start Up’ title at the 2020 Blas na hÉireann awards.

The ‘Best Artisan’ award went to Irish Gourmet Butter in Waterford for its lightly salted butter and it also secured the ‘Best in Munster’ award.

The ‘Best in Connacht’ award was given to The Little Cheesecake Shop in Co. Mayo and ‘Best in Ulster’ was named as Mauds Ice-cream based in Carrickfergus.

The Blas na hÉireann award for ‘Best New Product’ was given to Crawford Rock Seaweed Co & Rosemary for its seaweed seasoning garlic.

The winner of ‘Rogha na Gaeltachta’ is Builin Blasta in Co. Galway for its smoked onion mayo.

The ‘Seafood Innovation’ award has been given to Islander Kelp for its Islander Kelp spicy relish.

Some ‘Best in County’ winners included: Lakeland Dairies in Cavan; Kepak in Cork; Dromod Boxty in Leitrim; Kearney’s Home Baking in Limerick; and Ispini Charcuterie in Tyrone.

There was also a large number of winners of gold, silver and bronze titles across a vast variety of categories such as dairy, poultry and cured meats.

2020 judging process

The competition has had to overcome several challenges this year. With Covid-19 restrictions still in place, judging had to relocate to Dingle in July.

After the initial first round of judging, the top-scoring products went through a second round of tasting, both in Dingle and at satellite venues across the country.

In conjunction with University College Cork (UCC), these results were studied and the findings showed that the results based on two entirely separate panels returned the exact same rankings.