Warwickshire News Mine

The Food and Drink Awards are being coordinated, with the assistance of partners, by Warwickshire County Council, and last year’s winner in two categories ‘Best Restaurant’ and ‘Excellence in Quality and Customer Service’, has been telling how the win has made a difference to her business.

Laura Hamilton who runs Queans in Dormer Place in Leamington, said: “It was brilliant to both win the award and then see the difference it made with all the publicity that came with it. There were newspaper interviews, radio interviews, and my front of house is about to do some work now on a BBC television programme.

“The publicity meant that all of a sudden people were booking from the Coventry area, which we’d not had before with most of our custom coming from the Leamington and Warwick area.

“One thing we work very hard on is keeping as much as we can local, our eggs and all dairy products (which go into the making of my 16 different flavours of ice cream), all come from Warwickshire, and my lamb is Lighthorne Lamb, also from Warwickshire. Visitors will notice that the menu is seasonal as we try and use local producers, and that means cooking with what is available at the time.”

The call is now going out for businesses that serve food and drink to enter this year’s awards - once again encouraging and rewarding quality, excellence and innovative use of locally sourced or home grown produce.

The awards, which are in their 6th year and free to enter, will be celebrated at a prestigious awards dinner on Tuesday 20 November where the winners will be announced. Winners not only benefit from extensive PR highlighting their success but increased awareness amongst potential customers and recognition of their quality standards and commitment to local food sourcing.

Businesses are encouraged to enter one of the following categories: ‘Best Restaurant’, ‘Best Café/tearoom’, ‘Best Breakfast’, ‘Best Ethnic Restaurant’ and ‘Best Junior Chef’.  There is also an opportunity for eating establishments to nominate a local producer under the ‘Best local producer’ category. All short listed entries will automatically be entered into two further awards: ‘Excellence in Quality and Customer Service’ and ‘Champion of Local Produce’.

Running alongside the awards scheme is the Coventry & Warwickshire Food and Drink Festival, which will take place from 28 September - 4 November. The Festival is a great new initiative to encourage people to eat out, experience local produce and for businesses to extend the traditional tourism season as far as November. Participating eateries are being asked to produce a promotional priced house menu utilising some element of local produce.

The Coventry & Warwickshire Food and Drink Awards is run by a steering group of representatives from North Warwickshire Borough Council, Nuneaton & Bedworth Borough Council, Rugby Borough Council, Stratford-on-Avon District Council, Warwick District Council, Warwickshire County Council, CVOne, Shakespeare Country, Fresher by Miles, Heart of England Fine Foods, Henley College, the Chamber of Commerce & the Regional Centre for Tourism Business Support with support from Advantage West Midlands.

Cllr Chris Saint, Warwickshire County Council’s Portfolio Holder for Economic Development, said: “Warwickshire businesses have suffered from some awful weather this summer. These awards have grown in importance in recent years and will go some way to highlighting the excellence that exists around Warwickshire.  This timely reminder will hopefully encourage more people to go out and support these enterprises.”

Anne Cumberlidge, Tourism Business Adviser for Coventry & Warwickshire stated “It is fantastic to see businesses being rewarded and recognised for their hard work and commitment to using locally sourced or home grown produce, which is distinctive and unique in the area. Many businesses have found that their business has increased due to the success of winning the awards. The quality and standard of the entries have been very impressive over the years and its gets harder each year for the judges to chose a winner. It is essential that businesses use the criteria for the awards to make sure that their entry contains all the information necessary, the judges will be looking for that extra attention to detail and the exceeding of customer expectations.” 

The deadline to enter is Friday 14 September. Entrants must complete their details on a form, attach samples of their menu, promotional material, a list of suppliers and state in no more than two paragraphs why they deserve to win.  Businesses must use the criteria for the awards before they submit their entry.

Further details, including entry criteria can be found at http://www.foodanddrink2007.co.uk

Link to WCC