Announcing the 2017 BOOM Award winners

Last Wednesday, The Soil Association announced the winners of this year’s BOOM Awards at London’s iconic Borough Market.

The Soil Association BOOM Awards are the UK’s only dedicated organic awards, celebrating all the businesses, producers and brands working so hard to produce food as it should be. The awards showcased 23 winners and over a hundred finalists. The winners ranged from a beautiful floral salad to organic pastrami, and a full list of winners can be found here.

This year’s Boombassador was Chef and Food Writer, Rosie Birkett, who presented an award and designed an exclusive recipe for the event.

Rosie Birkett, Food Writer, Stylist and Author of two critically acclaimed books comments: “It’s such an honour to be this year’s BOOMbassador because helping to promote organic agriculture – and a more conscious way of cooking and eating – is something that is very important to me as a food writer and a cook. There were so many incredible and varied products entered, and we’ve had fun tasting and judging them.”

Winning a BOOM award is a real accolade, meaning the product or outlet is the best of the best in the UK organic industry, with the judging taking place over a week and featuring a wide range of industry experts, including a mixture of chefs, food experts, journalists, as well as the Soil Association, itself. Judges this year include Rosie Birkett (Chef and Food Writer), Anna Jones (aka We Are Food), Tom Hunt (Eco Chef), Alison Rhodes (Ocado Head of Brand) and Gurdeep Loyal (Harrods Marketing Manager).

This year, there are a number of new awards including Best Organic Farmer, which was won by Guy Watson of Riverford.

“At Riverford, we believe in innovation in every area of our business and always seek to do things better, and that includes our farming practices…We remain focused on growing for flavour, not cosmetic perfection or for surviving mechanical harvesting. This year we celebrate 30 years of Riverford, and we know the next thirty years and beyond are going to be bigger and brighter for organic farming, as more people choose to live life on the veg with us!” – Guy Watson, Riverford

When you see the Soil Association logo, you can be sure what you buy has been produced to the very highest standards. It means fewer pesticides, no artificial additives or preservatives, it’s always free range, meets the highest standards of animal welfare and contains absolutely no GM ingredients.

 Clare McDermott, Business Development Director at Soil Association comments:

“A massive congratulations to all the businesses shortlisted and of course to our winners. We’re thrilled that producers and outlets continue to innovate and help the organic market become more accessible. In 2016, the organic sector grew 7% and it is now worth £2 billion within the UK with new products appearing across the market all the time. We’ve found 82% of people buy organic at some point during the year, which is really encouraging for us to see at BOOM Awards.”