So there I was last night, sitting at my desk in the front room all alone with the cats, uploading web pages to the FreeFrom Food Awards site as the category winners were announced. You could have heard a pin drop….
Meanwhile, the virtual me was being viewed 492 times (according to Vimeo)… and that, of course, is the number of viewings – not necessarily the number of people who watched each viewing.
And while Boris, Arwen and I enjoyed a cup of tea, out there in the stratosphere, things were going crazy…. Twitter was so busy that even Alex couldn’t handle it. At one point we were trending at number 29 – which may not mean much to a lot of you, but it is SERIOUS…
Instagram was humming as winners posted pictures of their celebrations – this is Paula from Tesco celebrating hanging onto their crown as FreeFrom Retailer of the year!
And down in Hampshire, Cressida was hosting a Zoom get together of, at one point, over 80 – including one of our award winners in Australia! Here are a small sample of them, all dressed up to kill.
So, I think you could say that our virtual party was a success! thanks to the enthusiasm of our guests, the skill of or video editor, Will, amazing modern technology – and a lot of VERY hard work on the part of the in house team. Here we all are just before hand – Cressida looking amazingly both glamorous and relaxed, me plucked from the video, Alex looking extremely fierce as he tried to bring the Tweeters to order and Sue looking extremely worried that she was going to miss it all as she lives in the heart of the woods in Dorset and her technology is unreliable in the extreme.
The facts and figures:
• Asda won Marble Mo for the Best FreeFrom Food 2020 for their Plant based falafel burgers.
• Tesco retained their crown as Retailer of the Year.
• We had 45 gold winners in all the other categories.
• The overall standard was really excellent – and –
• Our Hero of the year award went to the Ednan-Laperouse family and their Natasha’s Research Foundation for their amazing work on behalf of allergic people.
Like the creators of so many other of the other extraordinary on line events that are being offered to us everyday, we had very little idea of what we were doing (although our filming was guided by Sue who is a real-life pro) – but we risked our arm and – it seems to have worked better than we could possibly have expected.
So now on to the next challenges. How can we incorporate what we have learnt into future awards, into our new website, our new branding which will be launched in September when the awards open for next year – and out new networking workshops scheme…..
Watch this space….
Meanwhile, to see the video or to check out who won what, go to the FreeFrom Food Awards site where you will find it all, including where to buy the winning products.