Hawkshead Relish, a Lake District family business who produce condiments, pickles, relishes, and preserves, has been shortlisted as a finalist in the Free-From category of the annual Food Manufacture Excellence awards 2021.

The Cumbrian company has been shortlisted alongside two other leading UK businesses; Kirsty’s Thoughtful Food, who produce a range of healthy ready meals and Whole Bake, who produce healthy and gluten free snacks.

The 19 award categories are designed to celebrate outstanding achievement across every aspect of the UK’s fast-growing food and drink industry. Specifically rewarding all elements of the food and drink manufacturing sector, including environmental initiatives, business acumen, business change management, supply chain innovation, young talent, and teamwork.

To be in with a chance of winning through, participating companies must demonstrate significant achievement in their category in at least three of the following areas: customer relationship building, quality assurance; environment and efficiency, skills development and training and business development.

Now the Relish team have to wait it out until the online awards ceremony, which is scheduled to take place on Thursday 11^th February 2021, to find out if they can win through in the Free-From category.

Chair of Judges Geoff Eaton, said: ‘’I was incredibly impressed that so many good quality entries were pulled together in this environment. There were fascinating and genuinely innovative achievements in every category, and it was great to see so many small and large businesses represented.”

Geoff added: ‘’Many of the smaller ones demonstrated brilliant ideas but were just at too early a point in their journey. There were, however, the ones to watch. I also found  the experience of judging really positive. You learn so much about what people are doing. Well done to all the finalists, we look forward to finding out who the winners will be when they are announced next February.’’

Maria Whitehead, co-owner and director of Hawkshead Relish, commented: ‘’We are thrilled to be shortlisted in the Free-From category of the Food Manufacture Excellence Awards. We understand better than most the issues people can face with regards to allergies and intolerances, so for us it just made sense to craft products that everyone can eat. From the very outset as a company we took a conscious decision to make sure that everyone could enjoy what we produced, which is why everything we produce is Free-From, it’s not a fad, it’s really important to us and this recognises the lengths we have gone to over the years to ensure that everyone has access to what we make.