THE big cheese at this year’s Listowel Food Fair was Dick Williams who scooped the prestigious Sheila Broderick National Farmhouse Cheese Award for Coolea Farmhouse.

He was among a host of winners in various categories who were announced at a special celebration of food last Thursday night in the company of Ireland’s Culinary Queen, Catherine Fulvio.

The Chairperson of Listowel Food Fair, Michelle O’Connor, said: “The festival was a tasty, flavoursome and entertaining success. The level of talent continues to rise each year with a wonderful array of food in all categories. From Philip O’Connor who took the Best Emerging Food Award for “Seymour’s Biscuits” to Fiona Hunt (13) who’s Chocolate Chips Cookies secured runner-up spot in the Junior Home Baker of the Year competition, the quality was top class. All of our events were very well attended from Wednesday through to Sunday with many visitors travelling from outside the county to join in at our seminars and food trails. Hundreds of people were entertained and educated by the wonderful Catherine Fulvio on Thursday night and the Saturday Live Kitchen was also a resounding success.”

The Kerry Food Book of the Year Award went to Edward Hayden for his book entitled Food to Love published by O’Brien Press. Theresa Foley from Tralee collected the Kerry Food Hero Award while her Whoopy Cakes were the Best Emerging Baking product. The Bord Bia Quality Mark for schools was awarded to Hazelwood College Dromcollogher, Co Limerick with Presentation Secondary School Listowel and Killarney Community College also taking prizes in that competition.

Noelle O’Keeffe from Ranelagh, Dublin won the Home Baker of the Year Award (adult) for her Swiss Roll while Emma O’Connell from Hazelwood College took the Junior Prize.

Awards were presented to the winners in a number of specialty categories with Theresa Foley from Tralee collecting the Kerry Food Hero Award while her Whoopy Cakes were the Best Emerging Baking product. The other best Emerging Products winners were Eva Garcia (Confectionary) from the The Swee Life Co, Billy & Leah Sweeney (Meat) for Leah’s Gourmet Pudding, Henry Hegarty (Condiments) for Wokabout and Margaret McCarthy (Dairy) for Kenmare Ice Cream.

“The Listowel Food Fair offers a platform for new food producers to demonstrate their skills and hopefully make the breakthrough to a successful footing in the commercial food sector. But it’s also much more than that as the information seminars on nutrition, women’s health, the future of the Dairy Industry were all very well attended,” said Michelle O’Connor.

It wasn’t all about food at the Catherine Fulvio Demonstration event on Thursday night when Miss Universe Ireland, Aoife Hannon selected Peggy Brick from Listowel as the Best Dressed Person sponsored by Coco Boutique and Aoife Hannon Milliner. Anne Fitzmaurice won two complimentary Aer Arann flights from Kerry to Dublin. In the battle of the mad yolks on Saturday, Billy Keane cracked his opponent Joe “the Vicar” Murphy in the Omelette Challenge.

The organisers of Listowel Food Fair paid tribute the event sponsors and in particular North & East Kerry Development and Bord Bia with the County Development Board, Utensils, Garvey’s Supervalu, The Kerryman, Kerry Group, AIB Bank, Dairymaster.

“We also wish to thank the local community and various businesses who played a key role in organising this year’s festival. Plans are already underway to make the next year’s Listowel Food Fair better than before and the provisional dates for the diary are Wednesday 31^st October to Sunday 4^th November 2012,” said Michelle O’Connor.

For more details of how to become a part of Ireland’s longest running food fair, visit www.listowelfoodfair.com or find us on Facebook.

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