Great British Food awards for Mash Direct, Ewing’s Seafoods, Burren Balsamics and Ballylagan Organic Farm

Mash Direct, the Northern Ireland specialist in vegetable sides and convenience meals, has won a Great British Food award for its popular Beer Battered Chips in the Gluten Free category.

Mash Direct, in addition, was named Northern Ireland regional winner.

Ewing’s Seafoods in Belfast has been named Best Fishmongers in the prestigious national awards.

Armagh-based Burren Balsamics won the ‘Best New Product’ award for their Irish Peat Smoked Vinegar.

Ballylagan Organic Farm, near Ballyclare in county Antrim has won the Best Farm Shop section for Northern Ireland in the awards.

The farm shop at Ballylagan is the sole outlet for all the farm’s home grown produce; beef, pork, bacon, eggs, seasonal fruit and vegetables.  It also sells a selection of home-made items from their kitchen, butchery and bakery.

To augment its own home grown produce, the farm buys in a range of fruit and vegetables every week from an organic wholesaler. The shop also features South African Biltong produced on the farm by award winning artisan producer Ke Nako Biltong.

Mash Direct, which is based on a family farm near Comber in county Down, has developed an extensive range of products using ingredients sourced from the farm and neighbouring farms.

The company, owned by Martin and Tracy Hamilton and family, exports a range of products throughout the UK, Republic of Ireland, the US and Middle East.

Mash Direct’s Beer Battered Chips product was described by judge Eric Lanlard as “The best ever oven chips I have ever eaten….super fluffy, crispy on the outside when they came out of the oven, I would never have known that they were gluten free…proper restaurant chips.”

Family owned business Ewing’s Seafoods is Belfast’s oldest fishmongers and a major supplier to hotels and restaurants across Northern Ireland. The shop, in addition, has been producing premium smoked fish, especially salmon, for almost a century.

Ewings and Ballylagan were successful in the section of the awards decided by readers of the popular magazine.

Burren Balsamics Irish Peat Smoked Vinegar was described by members of the Booths buying team judging as “A wonderfully unique-tasting condiment, quite unlike anything our buyers have tasted before. White Italian pale balsamic with rich smoky flavours of peat.