Press Releases

Lewis & Cooper

30 Aug 2011

GTA gold stars glitter for gourmet food producer

JUDGES searching for the country’s best food and drink have awarded their top award to a plum pudding produced in North Yorkshire.
Lewis & Cooper’s dedicated team of eight kitchen staff work all year round to hand-make plum puddings – last year they notched up 46,000. Now their efforts have been rewarded with a three star gold Great Taste Award from the Guild of Fine Food.
Of the 7,481 foods and drinks from 1,600 producers entered for the awards – the industry’s most prestigious – the made-in-Yorkshire pudding, which is made from the finest ingredients to a century-old recipe, was one of only 114 entries judged worthy of a three-star gold award.
Judges declared Lewis & Cooper’s traditional pudding, which finds its way onto shelves across the country, as well as into the firm’s trademark hampers, a “good and moist and flavourful pudding, well done.”
The Northallerton team also struck gold from the judges with their luxury fruit cake, which took a two-star gold award: one of only 608 awarded. They said it was a “very nice moist cake with good dept of flavour and good variety of flavours.”
Last year the team made 33,000 cakes.
The company has added half a dozen Great Taste Awards to its trophy cabinet over the years. Victoria Howard, general manager, said: "We are so proud to add two more Great Taste Golds to our growing collection. They are a mark of quality that is trusted by retail and wholesale customers alike.
"Production manager Wendy Robinson and her hardworking team in our Northallerton kitchens beaver away all year creating our cakes and puddings by hand. These awards are a fantastic endorsement of their attention to detail."
Gluten-free varieties of both products have become strong sellers for the company, and its gluten-free plum pudding was named runner-up in the awards’ best speciality from Yorkshire and Humber category three years ago – as well as earning a three-star gold.
Lewis & Cooper puddings and cakes go all over the world and are sold by famous names such as Harvey Nichols, Selfridges, Fenwicks, Lakeland, The National Trust and English Heritage. Each pudding must mature for six months before it even leaves the site; they carry on getting better and better for up to three years.
Great Taste Awards chairman Bob Farrand said: “Winning Gold in the country’s largest and most respected independent food accreditation scheme is a massive pat on the back for any producer – independent proof their products are of the highest quality.
“We provide constructive feedback from our expert judging teams and for many, winning one, two or three-star gold is exactly what’s needed to help grow their businesses, even during a recession.”
* A full list of award-winning products is available at www.greattasteawards.co.uk.
* Stockists interested in carrying Lewis & Cooper’s GTA award-winning products should contact sales development manager Linda Walters on 01609 777700.
August 2011

NOTES TO EDITORS
* For more details and product images, or to arrange review samples, contact gareth.dant@lewisandcooper on 01609 760059 or 07929 869269.
* The Northallerton store is at 92 High Street, telephone 01609 772880; a second store is 109 High Street, Yarm, telephone 01642 784158. See www.lewisandcooper.co.uk.
* The Great Taste Awards, organised by the Guild of Fine Food, are regarded as the authoritative, independent standard for Britain’s fine food sector and have been running for 18 years. This year it took 350 experts 34 days to blind taste all of the entries.
ENDZ