Thame Food festival is off to the Oscas !

ALREADY the winner of a Bronze Award in The Beautiful South Tourism Awards 2015, Thame Food Festival has been chosen as a finalist in the Countryside Alliance Awards – Rural Oscars, with the presentation being held at the House of Lords on April 27.

Lotte Duncan with the Mayor of Thame, Nichola Dixon at Thame Food Festival 2015

Thame Food Festival was nominated by Thame Town Council and last week met with the Award Judges. Only on the day, at the parliamentary reception, will the winners be revealed and Thame is up against some very stiff competition!

In the words of Countryside Alliance Awards Director, Jill Grieve: ” These finalists are all exceptional – we have been overwhelmed by nominations this year so for them to get this far is a huge achievement. The secret to the Rural Oscars’ popularity is that they honour the people involved in these businesses and not just their produce or services. They exist to sing the praises of those who work hard to keep our communities and rural economy ticking, but don’t seek the spotlight. We are delighted to offer this platform to enable people to say ‘thank you’ to them for all they contribute. I wish all of these businesses well as judging gets underway; there are going to be some hard decisions ahead.”

An excited Lotte Duncan, who is Patron of the Thame Food Festival, said : “Wow! What an honour! When we opened the envelope that congratulated us on being finalists we were over the moon. So much work is put into the festival by the directors, volunteers, the chefs and bakers on the stages (who give their time for free), everyone who works behind the scenes and of course the amazing Artisan food producers who work so hard day in, day out to give us some outstanding and delicious food on the day.

“What makes us even happier is that two of our festival Stallholders are also finalists in the Butcher’s category – The Pointer in Brill and Egg House Charcuterie in Haddenham. Last week we met with the judges and spent a couple of hours chatting to them in great detail about Thame Food Festival. We absolutely can’t wait for April to see whether or not we have been honoured!” 

INTRODUCING THE FINALISTS IN THE 2015 RURAL OSCARS

The awards are the Countryside Alliance’s annual celebration of rural produce, skills, enterprise and heritage through our small hard-working businesses. They are now in their eleventh year and have become the definitive rural business award to win. The Awards are public-nomination led across four categories: Local Food; Village Shop/ Post Office; Butcher and Tourism Enterprise. Thousands of nominations were received and the judges have selected ten finalists in each category.

The finalists on their way to London are:

Local Food finalists
• Gog Magog Hills Farm Shop in Cambridgeshire
• Ben’s Restaurant at Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk
• The Kings Arms Inn at Wing in Rutland
• Farndon Fields Farm Shop in Leicestershire
• Blue Tin Produce at Ipsden in Oxfordshire
• Battlefield 1403 Farm Shop in Shropshire
• Bride Valley Farm Shop in Dorset
• Padstow Farm Shop in Cornwall
• Langthornes Buffalo Produce, North Yorkshire
• Lower Clopton Farm Shop, Warwickshire

Village Shop finalists
• Haughley Post Office, Suffolk
• The Heath Stores, Kent
• Sherborne Village Shop, Gloucestershire
• Motcombe Community Shop, Dorset
• Barkers of Huby, North Yorkshire
• Kings Walden Post Office Store, Hitchin
• St Tudy Community Shop and Post Office, Cornwall
• Woods of Whitchurch, Herefordshire
• Bardon Mill Village Store, Northumberland
• Churchinford and District Community Shop, Devon
• Beech Hill Village Shop, Berkshire
• Barford Village Community Shop, Warwickshire

Tourism Enterprise finalists
• Dalegate Market, Norfolk
• Jordan’s Mill, Bedfordshire
• Drusillas Park, East Sussex
• Harveys Brewery, West Sussex
• The Burnham on Sea Food & Drink Festival, Somerset
• Thame Food Festival, Oxfordshire
• Shrewsbury Food Festival, Shropshire
• Loyton Estate, Devon
• New Lodge Farm, Northamptonshire
• Narrow Waters, Cambridgeshire

Butcher finalists
• The Egg House Charcuterie, Buckinghamshire
• The Pointer Butcher, Buckinghamshire
• A Johnson & Son Ltd, Staffs
• Arthur Howell, Norfolk
• Clive Downs Butchers of Porlock, Somerset
• John Robinson of Stockbridge, Hampshire
• Veysey’s Butchers, Cullompton, Devon
• John Hutton Butchers, Suffolk
• G F White Traditional Butchers, Norfolk
• MB Farms Produce Ltd, Kent
The Thame Food Festival is a community event run by the community for the community. For more details, or to get involved by sponsoring or supporting next year’s festival, go to www.thamefoodfestival.co.uk.

For more information on the Rural Oscars go to:
http://countrysideallianceawards.org.uk/caa/article/the-countryside-alliance-awards