East Yorkshire Poultry business picks up stars in Great Taste Awards

Tue 8th August 2017
Nigel Upson

Middleton on the Wolds based poultry specialist T.Soanes & Son has been awarded one star accolades for two of its products from prestigious fine food and drink accreditation scheme, The Great Taste Awards.

Their free range whole chicken and Christmas cockerel were each awarded the stars after going through rounds of blind-taste testing.

The Great Taste awards are organised by the Guild of Fine Food and this year attracted over 12,000 entries that were judged by 500 industry specialists from top chefs to fine food retailers. It is widely acknowledged as the benchmark for artisan and speciality food producers.

T.Soanes & Son's general manager Nigel Upson said: "We are overjoyed to have been awarded stars from Great Taste as, not only is it a validation of our quality by industry professionals, but they represent an assurance to the customer that the product tastes exceptional.

"Our farmers put huge amounts of effort into rearing the birds for excellent taste and these accolades make their hard work even more worthwhile."

Judges said the Christmas cockerel had a ‘gentle gaminess in the aroma and in the meat, giving a depth and intensity to the flavour'. Others described it as a ‘handsome chicken' with good texture and flavour.

They remarked on the ‘clean, honest flavours' from the free range whole chicken which was also described as a ‘lovely, plump bird' with juicy and tender white and dark meat.

T.Soanes and Son is a family owned business which has been rearing and preparing chicken for 70 years. It employs almost 100 people and rears five million chickens a year on its Yorkshire farms and sells its chicken and game to butchers and independent retailers in Yorkshire and to wholesalers nationwide.

Just Beverley