Mossfield Organic Farm's mature cheese has won the 2010 National Organic Awards. The cheese, which is now available as a prepack, was chosen from amongst 165 products from dozens of companies.
Ralph Haslam's farms almost 300 acres at the foothills of the Slieve Bloom mountains, where he stocks Rotbunt and Freisen dairy cattle.
No stranger to awards, this mature gouda style cheese has won numerous accolades in Ireland and abroad, including three gold stars and best Irish specialty food product at the Great Taste Awards.
It is certainly a cheese that can hold its own amongst the best in the world, and is fully deserving of its win.
The cheese was also the winner of the Sustainable category of the awards, which were announced on Tuesday. In this category, both Glenisk and Flahavans were highly commended. Both of the latter companies have made great strides to make their operations more sustainable: Glenisk for example use Airtricity in their own plant, have installed their own wind turbine and reed bed systems and have made partnerships with environmental NGOs like Cultivate and the Organic Centre, Leitrim.
However Mossfield's own farm in Offaly is a veritable haven of biodiversity. Their new grass sward has to be seen to be believed, such is the range of plants and thus butterflies, crickets, grasshoppers and various other insects in the fields.
Whilst organic farmers in general use clover to improve fertility, the Haslam sward is becoming very bountiful indeed.
Best New Product always attracts a lot of excitement, and this year its no different. Out of a very impressive new range from Ballybrado, their Organic Junior Muesli scooped the top award.
This ticks a lot of the right boxes indeed as a retail product. Very impressive and attractive packaging, coupled with a realistic blend of sweetness and health will make this a winner amongst conscious parents.
Anther exceptional new organic product, this one highly commended in the awards, is the Oliver Carthy Dry Cure Organic Rack of Bacon.
This marks a great new departure for Irish organic pork, as previously organic pork from Ireland was very difficult to come by. Oliver Carthy's other organic pork offerings, all very high quality products in their own right, were made with Danish bacon. This one is made with Irish meat instead. And many is the fine meal it will make in the months ahead.
In the export category, there was just one award and no commendations: Murphy�s Whole Fresh Irish Organic Salmon.
In the best retail product, three stalwarts of organic and indeed other awards scored best: Burren Smokehouse and Mossfield mature cheese were highly commended, while St. Tola's organic goat's cheese was the category winner.
The latter's award was in part because of the significant improvement in its packaging: previously St Tola's packaging was very basic indeed.
And while many products use images of the Burren to sell themselves abroad the difference here is that St Tola's is made in Inagh in the county Clare, on the fringes of the Burren itself.
Best Local Product went to Beechlawn organic farm. This year's awards included horticultural entrants for the first time. Beal Cheese and Moonshine organic dairies were also commended in this category.
What was most impressive about the local element of Beechlawn was how distinct it was from the otherwise more generic local claims made by others in the category.
They sell 85% of their produce in Co. Galway or Westmeath � all within one and a half hours drive from their Ballinasloe farm. They provided seeds, compost, manure, plants and gardening expertise to the school garden in Scoil U� Cheithearnaigh, Ballinasloe ( primary school) throughout Spring and early Summer 2009 and 2010.
Una Ni Broin of Beechlawn also has delivered extensive organic horticultural teaching days, many of them in Irish, from single events to 20 hour courses across the region. Each year, the farm hosts 6-8 farm walks.
SO what are you waiting for? get munchin!
