British Pie Awards 2020
Gambardeli’s scoops 2 awards at the prestigious British Pie Awards 2020
In 2019, Margaret found out about entering for the British Pie Awards. She decided to enter her Wellington, Epic Roast slathered with chestnut mushrooms and roast chestnut duxelles encased in a blanket of crisp, puff pastry. She was delighted with a silver award in the newly formed vegan pie class. In fact another entry for the Vegan Pie class was crowned overall Pie of Pies champion.
Repeated success
Encouraged by that success Margaret entered again in 2020.
Once more she was delighted to receive a Bronze Award for The Tagine Pie, inspired by a traditional Berber recipe for Medallions and vegetable Tagine with aromatic Middle Eastern spices in puff pastry. A silver award was also bestowed upon Her Steak and Mushroom Pie a pillow of puff pastry with a generous filling of steak and mushroom subtly flavoured.
The British Pie Awards
The historic town of Melton Mowbray hosts the pie award and it is attended by pie makers all over the UK. There are 23 different classes covering a wide range of pies from vegan and vegetarian to meat and dessert. In 2019 there were over 70 entries in the vegan pie class making our award even sweeter. The standard is incredibly high.
The pie must meet set criteria.
Firstly The pie is classed as a filling completed enclosed in pastry
Secondly The pies must be within a given tolerance of temperature to be safe to eat.
Finally the pies have to meet a weight limit for certain classes.
The judging
In 2020 we accepted the invitation to attend the judging. Judges come from a wide range of backgrounds and the judges for the vegan class are not all vegan themselves. I found it very interesting to find how the pies are judged. Each pie is presented on an anonymous white plate, some are heated whilst others are served cold. The judges have a sheet to record their views and an official guides the proceedings. Lots of bites of pies later the judges have made their and the sheets handed in for the scores to be collated. Entrants are notified with many delighted award winning pie makers and some disappointed if they don’t receive an award.
What it means to us
We felt that entering the BPA is an exciting opportunity to have the pies judged in an objective manner. We welcomed the remarks on how to improve the pies as we are always looking to improve our customer experience. Receiving these awards gives us confidence that we have tasty pies and I’m sure that its interesting for our customers to know that our pies meet this exacting standard.
The Image
I have included the photograph of me at the judging in 2020.
We’re on the map
Copy the Link below into your browser to see a map showing the location of award winners for 2020.
https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?mid=1poljzdDQdOg4I_SU4yAgyBxcnYcu4kcV&usp=sharing