Inaugural Belling West Cork Artisan Food Awards Presented to Two Outstanding West Cork Food Producers

Milleens Farmhouse Cheese and Brown Envelope Seeds have been awarded the 2011 Belling Artisan Food Trophies, and €5,000 each in prize money.

Milleens Farmhouse Cheese, of Eyeries on the Beara Peninsula, and Madeleine McKeever's Brown Envelope Seeds, of Turk Head near Skibbereen, were awarded the 2011 Belling Trophies, along with a cheque for €5,000, the biggest prize in Irish food, at a ceremony at the West Cork Hotel in Skibbereen, West Cork.

Veronica and Norman Steele of Milleens were presented with the Originals Trophy and Madeleine McKeever of Brown Envelope won the Newcomer Trophy, having been selected from the panel of eight nominees by the judges.

“Choosing two winners from nominees of such quality was a daunting task,” said John McKenna, of the Bridgestone Guides. “But we feel that Milleens Cheese and Brown Envelope Seeds are defining examples of the West Cork way of working with food. Milleens Cheese, for example, was the first artisan food made in West Cork back in the 1970's, and Brown Envelope Seeds is the most important seed company in the country.”

Darina Allen said: “Brown Envelope Seeds works in a modern world where corporations are trying to patent every type of seed in addition to working towards a world of genetically modified seeds, so Madeleine is a vital link to future bio-diversity, sustainable agriculture and public ownership of the very building blocks of agriculture itself.  I'm also delighted that Milleens has been recognised with the Originals prize, as it was the first Irish farmhouse cheese to feature on the cheeseboard in Ballymaloe House.”

The Belling Awards were presented by Julian King the British ambassador to Ireland, and by Sean O'Driscoll of Belling Ireland.

The Belling Bursary Award, which will be worth €5,000 to the winning student and which will allow them to study at UCC’s School of Speciality Food Production, was also announced.

The judging panel consists of Darina Allen of the Ballymaloe Cookery School; Rose O'Driscoll of Belling Ireland; Ella McSweeney of RTE; John Field of Field's Supervalu; Carmel Somers of Good Things Café; and John McKenna of the Bridgestone Guides

The Belling Awards are sponsored by Belling Ireland. Belling Ireland is part of the Glen Dimplex Group, Ireland's largest privately-owned business, with a turnover of €2 billion annually and a workforce of 10,000.

Sean O'Driscoll, the chief executive and chairman of the Glen Dimplex Group, is a West Cork man, born in Drimoleague. “We are delighted that Belling, our leading cooking brand, is associated with and sponsors of the West Cork Artisan Awards,” said Mr O'Driscoll. “The artisan food producers of West Cork espouse what the Belling Brand aspires to be.”

The other principal sponsors of the awards are Horgan's Delicatessen and the Ballymaloe Cookery School.  Horgan's delicatessen has specialised in distributing Irish artisan brands both in Ireland and overseas since the 1970's.