Top 50 British Foods listing for Hannan's Glenarm Shorthorn Beef

Salt aged Glenarm Shorthorn beef from Hannan Meats, Moira in Northern Ireland was the first product to be listed (9thAugust) by the UK Guild of Fine Food as part of the prestigious Top 50 Foods in the Great Taste Awards 2013.

The Guild is developing a portfolio of the top 50 British foods drawn from the 125 products to achieve the top ranking of three gold stars in this year's annual Great Taste Awards, regarded as the 'Oscars' of the food industry. It intends to list the top 50 ahead of the announcement of the overall Supreme Champion at a gala dinner on 9thSeptember.

The Glenarm Shorthorn beef is sourced by Hannan Meats from its supplier group based around the Glenarm estate in county Antrim and carefully aged by the company in the world's biggest salt chamber. Hannan Meats gained the Supreme Champion Award in the Great Taste Awards last year with its guanciale pig's jowl.

Listing the beef in the Top 50, the UK Guild of Fine Food said: "Having revolutionised the pig's cheek with last year's Supreme Champion guanciale, Northern Ireland's Hannan Meats has turned its attention to beef.

"This rack is prepared in Hannan's recently constructed dry-aging chamber using a 12ft high solid wall of hand-cut Himalayan rock salt bricks. Judges said it was 'very tender and soft, a lovely texture and deep mature flavour'.

The Glenarm Shorthorn beef was among seven beef products from Hannan to gain the coveted three stars in this year's Great Taste Awards. Seven three stars for one company is an all-time record in the awards.

Overall, Hannan Meats, which specialises in premium quality beef, bacon and poultry for foodservice, including restaurant pace-setters such as Mark Hix, and high end retailers such as Fortnum and Mason in London, gained a record 44 gold awards in this year's competition.

The seven three star golds from Hannan were among 14 foods from Northern Ireland to achieve the top ranking in the awards. This means that Northern Ireland food companies contributed more than 10 per cent of the 125 products in this category.

Hannan headed 70 Northern Ireland companies, both large and small, which set another record by achieving almost 350 gold stars, a significant step forward on the 2012/12 awards when 47 Northern Ireland companies gained around 200 gold stars.