UK Gold record set by Hannan in Great Taste Awards
Hannan Meats, the Northern Irish meat business, has set a new gold standard in the prestigious UK Guild of Fine Food's Great Taste Awards. The company was awarded 26 gold stars, the largest ever haul of awards by a single UK producer, in the history of the annual event.
The 26 awards won in 2012/13 follow 14 achieved by the company the previous year.
En Place Foods UK, a Hannan subsidiary which specialises in chutney, relish, sauces and culinary flavour drops, gained a further five gold stars for its relish and a new range of jams.
Hannan Meats gained the top Great Taste Award, three stars for excellence, for its unique Moyallon Guanciale, an Italian style cured pork cheek, a richly flavoured ingredient traditionally used in regional Italian cuisine which has also been ranked by the guild as one of the Top 50 British Foods.
Based at Moira in rural county Armagh, Hannan gained awards for its Shorthorn sirloin, fillet and rib-eye, its Hereford fillet steak, its beef and leek sausages, dry-aged fillet steak, rib-eye chop, dry-cured thick cut bacon, traditionally dry-cured and sliced bacon collar, selected pork rack dry-cured and sweetened, loin pork chop from free-range pigs, dry-cured, lightly smoked bacon belly and dry-cured bacon collar smoked over applewood.
Managing director Peter Hannan says: "We are delighted that so many of our products have won gold stars from such a respected organisation as the UK Guild of Fine Food. We are a market focused business, and the awards recognise our developing expertise in dry-ageing and curing techniques that enable us to offer existing and potential customers superb meat.
"As a business we have set our sights only on excellence in provenance, quality and consistency, which begin with breed, feed and excellent animal husbandry. We are essentially at the centre of a partnership that covers both products and new ideas for food that we can provide for our network of customers."
The company, which also operates the successful Meat Merchant delis in Northern Ireland and at Newcastle Upon Tyne, specialises in supplying high-end restaurants and foodservice operations throughout the UK and Ireland. Products including its unique Mighty Marbled steak features on the menus of top restaurants such as Mark Hix's Tramshed in London's Shoreditch district.
Hannan Meats has also invested extensively in dry-ageing and curing techniques to enable it to offer customers richly flavoured meat. It is the only meat business in Europe to have installed a salt chamber from Himalayan blocks of salt for ageing meat.