Kiwi Ingenuity a Stand-Out at This Year’s Pork Awards

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Kiwi Ingenuity a Stand-Out at This Year’s Pork Awards

Winners announced at NZPork’s annual gala dinner

New Zealand’s creative culinary ingenuity shone bright at The Orange in Auckland last night, where a mix of local farmers, butchers, retailers and industry leaders gathered to celebrate the winners of the eleventh annual Pork, Bacon and Ham Awards.

The competition, which took place in July, provided more than 40 pork retailers from across the country with the chance to showcase their best and most innovative New Zealand born and raised pork products.

Head judge and chef Glenn Curphey says this years’ awards showcased the talent and ingenuity of Kiwi butchers, who continue to produce high quality NZ pork products every year.

“This year’s award winners are a testament to the professionalism and creativity of New Zealand butchers,” Glenn says.

“There were some truly outstanding and original products – from nitrate free, coconut cured bacon, to banarama dry cured bacon and even a pork bacon bomb.”

The awards were sponsored by Hally Labels, Pacific Flavours, Five Star Pork, Porkcorp and Freshpork NZ, and included more than 183 entries in nine different categories – including innovation and convenient pork, boneless and bone-in ham, as well as middle, dry cured, shoulder, streaky and middle eye bacon.

Among the winners announced last night were this year’s supreme champions: Sam’s Butchery for Streaky Maple Bacon in the Bacon category, Best Meats 2 for Dufty Ham in the Ham category, and Grey Lynn Butchers for Guanciale, or cured pork cheek in the Pork category.

Grey Lynn Butchers also won the supreme award for pork last year, and took home an additional 3 awards last night – including Gold for Innovative Pork, Silver for Boneless Ham and Silver for Convenient Pork.

Glenn Curphey, a NZQA qualified judge who has been involved in competitions both regionally and nationally, says it took a lot of thoughtful consideration to come to the final winners this year.

“Each category panel consisted of at least one technical expert, one chef and one additional judge to ensure each entry was scrutinised from every angle – including technical skills, aesthetic and presentation, as well as flavour, texture and aroma,” he says. “So the winners should be really proud of their achievements.”

He says all butchers who entered deserve recognition for using New Zealand born and raised pork, bacon and ham, and for investing their time and money into such a fantastic local competition.

“Kiwi farmers work hard to provide New Zealanders with quality pork products, so it’s really great to see local retailers promote them the way they do.”

NZPork Deputy Chair Paul Bucknell says the board founded the awards over 11 years ago to provide local retailers with the opportunity to showcase PigCare Accredited New Zealand pork products, and every year they’ve gone from strength to strength.

“The awards demonstrate the outstanding quality, flavour and taste that can be achieved by combining New Zealand born and raised pork with the skills and creativity of local butchers,” he says.

“And with the Born and Raised in New Zealand country of origin labelling and our PigCare programme, it’s really easy for Kiwi consumers to identify the best products in New Zealand – which often come from our award winners.”

“A big congratulations to everyone, and a huge thank you to our sponsors.”

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