Hunt is on for NZ’s top ice creams

Hunt is on for NZ’s top ice creams

A judging panel of food industry experts gathered at Auckland’s Food Bowl last week to taste their way through a mountain of delicious NZ-made ice cream entered in the hotly-contested annual NZ Ice Cream Awards. The awards have this year attracted 308 entries, reflecting the growth and diversification of the NZ ice cream manufacturing sector.

The Ice Cream judges (L to R): Geoff Scott, Jacqueline Matthews, Craig Davis, Kay McMath, Hayden Lomax, Joanna Boese.

Hannah Wood, Founder and Chief Gelato Maker at boutique manufacturer Little Lato, says the NZ Ice Cream Awards celebrate the best-of-the-best and the competition is always fierce because of the overall high quality of NZ-made ice cream with locally sourced dairy and other ingredients.

“From the gelato stores with a rainbow of flavour options to an increasing array of premium brands and household favourites that are always stocked in supermarket freezers, there’s something for everyone when it comes to ice cream. It’s no wonder that Kiwis eat more ice cream per capita on average than just about anyone else in the world, having only recently overtaken the US,” says Hannah.

There are 13 different categories that NZ ice cream makers can enter in the NZ Ice Cream Awards, ranging from the Standard Vanilla Ice Cream category to the Open Creative category, which was won last year by Deep South’s Chip & Dip Ice Cream.

Six food industry experts make up the judging panel, which is headed by Kay McMath who has been Chief Judge of the NZ Ice Cream Awards for over 10 years. Over two days, they tasted 308 ice creams each using a blind-judging process and strict technical judging criteria. Ice creams are judged out of 100 on the key attributes of flavour (50 points), body and texture (40 points) and appearance (10 points).

Local children take the judging panel’s place as judges of the popular ‘Kids Choice’ category, using a kid-friendly version of the main judging criteria. This year the lucky guest judges were from local YMCA holiday programmes in Auckland.

Gold medals are awarded to entries scoring 95-100 points and silver medals are awarded to entries scoring 90-94.9. The ice creams that score the highest in their category are awarded Best in Category and there are also two Supreme Awards, one for Large Manufacturers and one for Boutique Manufacturers.

The NZ Ice Cream Awards will be announced during NZ Ice Cream Week 11-17 November, an entire week dedicated to celebrating the quality of NZ-made ice cream and the role ice cream plays in our lives. It culminates in Ice Cream Sundae on Sunday 17 November, which is our national ice cream day.

The NZ Ice Cream Awards and NZ Ice Cream Week are run by the NZ Ice Cream Manufacturers’ Association (NZICMA), which also holds its annual conference during NZ Ice Cream Week.

 

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