Brinkworth Dairy wins Champion Gelato prize again

Brinkworth Dairy, based near Royal Wootton Bassett and Dauntsey, received the top award in the competition's gelato category. The family-run business had also won the Champion Gelato prize at the preceding International Cheese and Dairy Awards.

This year's winning flavour was salted caramel. In the previous year, Brinkworth's raspberry gelato secured the award, giving the dairy two successive victories with different products.

Ceri Cryer, a director of Brinkworth Dairy, described the result as important to the business. She said the second win demonstrated that the first result was not a one-off and credited Lee Sheppard's work.

Sheppard is Brinkworth's chief ice-cream maker and affineur. He began making ice cream only three months before winning his first champion title. Fifteen months later, he had won the gelato prize twice.

Sheppard said that product quality depended on close attention to detail and strict hygiene. He described cleaning each machine, monitoring every flavour and keeping the production area fully clean as necessary parts of ice-cream making.

The entry nearly missed the judging. Cryer said she travelled to Bingley Hall in Birmingham rather than the Bingley Hall in Stafford, where the competition was being held. She then had to hurry to present the products, which arrived as the judges were taking the stage. Cryer said a delay of another minute would have prevented Brinkworth from competing.

Kerry Love, the event's senior steward and the person who presented the award, said Brinkworth represented a British dairy whose staff cared about cheese, yoghurt, milk and ice cream. He also described businesses of this kind as central to British dairy and farming. Cryer said Brinkworth wanted all of its ice-cream flavours eventually to receive Champion Gelato awards at the International Cheese and Dairy Awards.