Note: March 2021
Below are the details of how the awards took place in 2020 with an update issued to all producers in August 2020. At the time it seemed like the most unique of circumstances, now, in March 2021, we know that we have a system in place which has been tried and tested to work within guidelines.
Published August 2020: Our team have been working tirelessly since March to make sure that Blas 2020 goes ahead and that we maintain our commitment to celebrating the very best in Irish food and drink. We feel that now, more than ever it is essential to shine a spotlight and give that all important clap on the back to the talented producers dotted around the island.
The event in Dingle will not take place this year as the safety of our team, our incredible volunteers from UCC, CIT, GMIT, IT Tralee and TU Dublin, our judges and our community here in Dingle is our top priority.
Throughout this year we have carefully watched the evolving situation and while we have always hoped to bring everyone together we have also planned for alternative arrangements.
As always, we have done everything with producers in mind.
Judging
Our summer judging has now taken place. Faced with the restrictions around college campuses still in place and under the watchful eye of our academic director Professor Joe Kerry of UCC we relocated our judging to Dingle, ensuring the judging was handled with the same care and attention as always.
We had hoped to have a finalist judging take place in Dingle in early October as per previous years and while we hoped for this we planned for restrictions to remain in place.
After the initial first round of judging we put the top scoring products from a number of categories through a second round of tasting, both in Dingle and at satellite venues across the country. In conjunction with UCC we studied these results and found that our results based on two entirely separate panels returned the same rankings.
The Blas na hÉireann 2020 results will be based on our summer judging sessions and will be announced as follows;
Producers will be notified by email, as always, if they have reached the finalist stage. These emails will be sent in the coming days and, as always, every producer who has taken part will receive an update on their entry.
Those in the finalist stage can promote their achievements between now and the awards being announced in October.
The awards will be announced online on Saturday 3rd October.
October – Producer Showcase, The Backyard and Awards
We are proud of the Blas na hEireann events we have created in Dingle each year in October and the visibility these give to producers over the course of the weekend. We know that they are an important part of the Blas experience.
The Blas Producer Showcase, while we may not be able to recreate the physical shop floor display we will be working to put the spotlight on each producer and their finalist products, bringing them to the attention of the buyers in an alternative format.
Due to the success of our virtual Backyard events in April, and the fact that the Backyard has become a very important aspect of the Blas weekend, we plan to facilitate a series of Backyard events online this year and we will work on an exciting and informative programme that reflects the times we are living in and the specific challenges producers and buyers are facing.
More details will be announced in the coming weeks.
For the awards themselves, we will be announcing the winners over the course of the day on October 3rd on our website and social media channels and while we will miss gathering collectively to cheer on colleagues and friends, we will make up for it by ensuring that #Blas2020 trends all day!
And we would ask that everyone get involved in the online celebration.
We did not make this decision lightly and we are confident that we have made the correct call by cancelling the Blas na hEireann events in October. We hope you understand and support the new format that we have developed to ensure that the Blas na hÉireann 2020 awards are announced and celebrated.
Please get in touch with us if you have questions. You can reach Fallon or Artie by phone on the numbers below or by email on info@irishfoodawards.com
Fallon — 087 9029329
Artie — 087 2026420
Find more details on finalist info here