From 10,000 entries in Great Taste this year, the prestigious honour of Great Taste Supreme Champion 2016 has been awarded to Hannan Meats’ Glenarm Shorthorn 4 Rib Roast
Hannan Meats is the first producer in the 22-year history of Great Taste to take the top award for the second time. Produced in Armagh, Northern Ireland, this exceptional piece of beef is dry-aged in a Himalayan Salt Chamber for a minimum of 28 days. Great Taste judges heaped praise on its outstanding flavour and succulence.
This victory for Hannan Meats’ Glenarm Shorthorn comes in a year that saw many Great British Sunday lunch favourites shine in Great Taste, such as the 3-star winning Tracklements’ Tewkesbury Hot Mustard and The Traditional Free Range Egg Company’s Waddling Free Duck Eggs, which make the fluffiest Yorkshire puddings, with Dunnes Stores’ All Butter Sticky Toffee Pudding and Jess’ Ladies Organic’s Double Cream coming together for an epic traditional dessert. It was Hannan Meats’ beef that stole the show, though, with judges commending its “sweet, juicy and oozy flavour that travels through the meat and fat” and dubbing it the star of any Sunday lunch.
Unprecedented in the 22-year history of Great Taste, Hannan Meats’ second Supreme Champion accolade follows the producer first lifting the prize in 2012 for its Moyallon Guanciale. No flash in the pan, Peter Hannan and his team have been perfecting this salt chamber dry-aging process for the best part of a decade, with this award the culmination of many years of dedication. Once again, Hannan Meats’ world-class butchery and maturation methods wowed the judging panel, who were bowled over by this very special cut of meat and couldn’t “believe that beef could taste so good”.
John Farrand, Managing Director of the Guild of Fine Food, organisers of Great Taste, explains; “Hannan Meats’ much-celebrated butchery skills have been honed over many years and this incredible level of dedication has resulted in consistent Great Taste success, along with two Supreme Champion titles to boot. This extraordinary Glenarm Shorthorn 4 Rib Roast is a testament to Hannan Meats’ carefully refined dry-aging and maturation process, which saw it fly through day-after-day of blind-tasting, winning over hearts and palates at every stage of Great Taste. It really did blow the final judging panel away and they’re not an easy bunch to impress.”
The Supreme Champion award, which is sponsored by Harrods, was presented to Peter Hannan at the Great Taste Golden Forks Dinner held on Monday 5 September at the Royal Garden Hotel in Kensington, where over 300 guests from the world of fine food gathered to hear the results of many months of rigorous judging.