Well, all those winners might think that they were the focus of the night, but we know who really was….. Marble Mo himself!
Here he is, dressed in a rather smart scarf waiting to hear where he was going to be living for the next year. And it turned out that, for the first time, he was going abroad – to Ireland with the lovely ladies from B Free – Aine and Freya. BFree, are long time entrants to the awards and past winners, so really deserved the ultimate accolade for their really excellent Sweet Potato Wrap – seen here performing an unusual service as Marble Mo’s toreador cloak!
But although BFree got the ultimate gong it was not all about them – as the 350 other people who gathered in the Royal College of Physicians on Tuesday night would certainly tell you! (And thank you to Sue for this lovely picture of Sir Denys Lasdun’s famous building.)
They had come to network, sample Chef Dean’s totally freefrom canapés – not to mention all those delicious gluten-free beers – and catch up on the freefrom news. Here they all are in the Dorchester Library…
Of course they were also hoping to pick up a gong themselves, which lots of them most certainly did, and to sample our amazing Winner’s Buffet – a very strange collection of all the products that have won gold earlier in the evening. From protein shakes to coconut and spirulina ice creams, via breakfast cereals, children’s party cakes, lamb protein bars, beef with dumplings, tortellini and gluten-free profiteroles! Not that the eclectic mix in any way dampened their enthusiasm…
So, who was there and what won what?
Well, for what won what I am going to send you, mainly, to the awards site where they are all laid out in detail with the judges’ comments. And… to Ruth of What Allergy?‘s own winners list – and to our press list where all our lovely bloggers awards’ posts are listed with their own top picks.
As for who was there….. Well, of course, there was Cressida…
…seen here announcing the Superfood winners – with her hot date, Louis the Lizard climbing suggestively up her dress….. And there was me – doing my school marm bit here I think and telling all those chatty people at the back to be quiet!!
There was Antony, being interview by the lovely Media Wisdom team.
And here is Antony again with John Burke, founder of the Irish FreeFrom Food Awards and long time FFFA judge. John was right in the middle of his own judging but had leapt on a plane too be with us for the night and was dashing off after the party to leap on another plane back to Dublin.
And here he is yet again with Lucinda Bruce-Gardyne of Genius Gluten Free and me. If you want to hear Lucinda and I reminisce about ‘those early days’ check in to the short video on the home page of the awards site.
Who wasn’t there, sadly, was our dear friend Jeffrey Hyman of the Food and Drink Innovation Network who died suddenly earlier this year.
But we were very happy to have his long term friend and colleague at the FDIN, Sue Lister, seen here presenting the Gold to – and having a good laugh with – the wonderfully named Most Marvellously Munchable Multiseed Crackers.
And here is Sue again with Catherine Rose of Sweetcheeks (one of our ‘kitchen C/Katherines’ who prepare all the foods for judging) and Alex who and had stepped down from his Twitter duties so that he could enjoy the party!
Stepping into Alex’s shoes was Hannah who was absolutely the unseen hero of the evening!
Unseen because she was tucked upon the balcony live tweeting the whole evening – and doing it with such amazing panache that the awards were actually trending on Twitter that night!!!! (So unseen, indeed, that the only picture I have of her is this one from last year hiding behind Marble Mo where she was ‘organising’ the sponsors.)
But Hannah was not only our Twitter hero. It was Hannah who, over the last six months, interviewed sponsors, winners and judges, and put together, edited and organised our tenth anniversary book – ‘a history of freefrom over the last ten years seen through then prism of the FreeFrom Food Awards’….
We gave everyone at the party a copy of the book to take home and now I see, to our amusement and delight, that they are actually for sale in WH Smiths!! (You can buy them from us cheaper…..)
So who else was there?…. Well, we had two men in skirts…
There was the lovely Keiran Middleton from Bellfield Brewery (bottom right of the picture) in his kilt. Bellfield, who live in Edinburgh, are the UK’s first dedicated gluten-free micro brewery – and they won gold in year one!
And then there was the even more lovely Adrian Ling from Plamil (one of our Superheroes) who can always be relied on for a stunning outfit!
Our Superhero category was a one off for our tenth anniversary – and it enabled us to finally get Lucy Bee (of coconut oil fame) involved in the awards as they had always refused to become sponsor unless we had a category for people rather than food!
We wanted to find the one person who we felt had done most to develop the freefrom sector over the last ten years. Not an easy task. In the event we came up with five possibilties, all of whom would have been extremely worthy winners.
In case you do not already know who won, I will not spoil the surprise – have a watch of this little video.
And finally….. You always have to have a few silly party photos, don’t you? So here is the ultimate ‘cheeeeese’….
…and Marble Mo might have thought he was doing a good job as a toreador, but he has nothing on Steve Walpole, seen here romancing old friend of the awards and long time judge, Jane Milton!
For all the winners of the awards see the awards see here.
For a short video of interviews with sponsors and winners see the home page of the site here.
For LOTS more photos of the winners and the guests, see here.
For the anniversary book see here.