The FreeFrom Food Award celebrations #FreeFromRocks

On Wednesday 22nd April the FreeFrom community waited with baited breath to discover which delicious freefrom products won their categories but most of all, who won the much coveted title of FreeFrom Food Awards overall winner.

In a secret location in London (The Royal College of Physicians) the movers and shakers in the world of freefrom gathered to discover the answer to that burning question – what was the best freefrom product according to this year’s judges?

It would be cruel to keep you in suspense any longer. The overall winner was Voakes gluten free pork pies which were pretty damn good. Read on to find out more…

Highlights for me included many winners but also many commended and highly commended products. Make sure you trawl through them all because you will find some really useful products amongst those who didn’t quite make the cut. For those people with multiple allergies, some of the runners up are far more useful than the winners so be diligent and you’ll find some gems.

Here are some of my highlights and they’re not all winners:

• The Foraging Fox Beetroot Ketchup (Commended in Store Cupboard category)
• Fria Puff Pastry – gluten and dairy free
• Edamame and mung bean pasta
• Karli Karkli, which resembled centipedes but tasted amazing as little snacks
• Coconut crisps
• DS gluten free pretzels which are just as good as any normal pretzels
• Stringers Outlook Ale which won the Gluten Free Beer category
• Tesco Party Snacks food which won the Down the bar snacks category
• Feel Free gluten free doughnuts
• Coconut Collaborative Mango and Passion fruit sorbet

Click here for a full list of all category winners of the FreeFrom Food Awards 2015.

A banquet with samples of all the winner’s products was revealed after the awards had been presented.

But by far the favourites for me, and the foods I made a beeline for on the winners’ buffet, of which most had gone by the time I found my way to it, was the Voakes Pork Pie and ilumi Za’tar curry.

Everyone loves a pork pie

Voakes Traditional Gluten Free Pork Pies won the overall and much coveted award of BEST EVER FreeFrom product for 2015 and trust me when I say, these pork pies are outstanding. If you didn’t know they were wheat, gluten and dairy free you would imagine you were eating any normal pork pie. No actually, that’s wrong. You would think you were eating a very good quality pork pie with not too much jelly and lots of quality pork and lovely crisp pastry which doesn’t crumble when you bite into it. Top marks Voakes and congratulations.

Bring back curry night

ilumi curries have changed the game for those with nut allergies. All ilumi curries are nut, gluten and dairy free and they are also free from all the major allergens. Curry night was a thing of the past until I discovered ilumi curries. So thank you ilumi and congratulations on your very well deserved award too. There was an extra special whoop from my corner of the room when that was announced. Keep making them, and the soup and chicken gravy. They really have made my allergy infested life so much more enjoyable, fun and damn site easier too.

Not to mention the bottle of Stringer’s gluten free real ale which went down very well. Followed by a bottle of Monty’s, brewed by a lady brewer – another of my favourites from the judging.

But by far the highlight of the whole evening was seeing all my lovely friends from the freefrom community.

People who I know from Twitter of whom there are too many to mention. Particularly those seen pictured here.

From left to right in this #FFFA15Selfie @GlutenFreeMrsD @glutenfreegrace @AlimentaryBites @HealthJourno @GFLifeIreland Front row: @gfreeb @DavidJ_GF and ME! @WhatAllergy

Thank you to all the incredible people who make all these amazing products and they are not just large companies, but often small independent businesses inspired by their own experiences to champion freefrom food.

I particularly like this photograph because we all look happy as punch and beautiful in our freefrom glory.

The event was being tweeted throughout the night by Alex Gazzola @HealthJourno so if you want to find out how the evening unfolded take a look at hashtag #FFFA15 for the highlights. It was trending on twitter by the end of the night which is pretty cool.

I think this year the awards were amazing. Bigger and better than last year, both in the quality and number of entrants but also in the support and number of attendees.

A special huge well done and big hugs to Michelle Berridale-Johnson, Cressida Langlands, Alex Gazzola, Sue Cane, Catherine in her glorious summer cocktail dress and everyone else who helped to organise such an incredible freefrom extravaganza.

Thank you to everyone who entered, attended and supported this event. I loved it. It was Fan-Tas-Tic and totally freefrom.

And finally, winner of the best business card of the night goes to David Johnstone @DavidJ_GF who has coined the phrase #OverExcitedCoeliac and lives up to it in every way.

Did you go? What was your highlight? What would you like to see created in the world of FreeFrom?

Find out what other bloggers thought here:

From Carly @GlutenFreeB (In the selfie above) http://glutenfreeb.com/2015/04/23/the-free-from-food-awards-2015-bs-lowdown/