The winners of the Guild of Food Writers Awards 2020 were announced on Tuesday 16 June and you can view the online ceremony here.

To continue this celebration of the great work in the food writing and broadcasting world, we asked each of the winners to tell us a bit about their award-winning work and to give us an idea of how they hope the award will make a difference for them. Here are the first set of answers. 
 

You can read what the judges thought about all of the finalists here.   

 

Awards Winners

Cereal (Farmerama Radio; Presenters and producers: Katie Revell, Jo Barratt and Abby Rose) won two awards: the Food Podcast or Broadcast Award (sponsored by The FoodTalk Show) and the Investigative Food Work Award

 

‘Cereal starts with a question: how did something as apparently simple as bread become so very complicated? Over the course of six episodes, it goes on to unpick the history of our bread, and to tell the story of a burgeoning movement: a network of seed breeders, farmers, millers, bakers and activists who are working together to reimagine and rebuild localised grain economies. Ultimately, their vision is of a food system that is economically resilient, environmentally regenerative and socially just, and capable of providing everyone with truly nourishing – and delicious – food.

‘At the heart of Cereal is the idea that, although our food system is hugely complex – and its dysfunction often overwhelming – bread itself is something everyone can relate to. Across cultures, everyone eats bread, in one form or another. We’re all part of the bread system – and we all have the power to change it for the better.

‘Lead Producer Katie Revell wove together the many strands of the Cereal story, supported by Co-Producers Abby Rose and Jo Barratt and the rest of the Farmerama team. We celebrated the launch of the series with harvest parties in London and Nottingham, bringing together people from all parts of the bread system. The podcast series and these events were made possible by a generous grant from the Roddick Foundation.

‘We make Farmerama Radio because we believe that the only viable future is one in which small-scale, regenerative farmers are valued and empowered. The podcast is a platform for those farmers to tell their stories.

‘Winning two Guild of Food Writers Awards is a huge boost for Farmerama – we’re delighted to be recognised in this way. Five years after we released our first episode, we remain as committed as ever to our original aim: sharing the voices of regenerative farming. The Awards mean those voices will be heard more widely than ever before – and that’s very exciting.’

 

The Vinegar Cupboard by Angela Clutton (published by Bloomsbury Absolute) also won two awards: the First Book Award and the Specialist or Single Subject Cookbook Award

 

‘To win one Guild of Food Writers Award is a huge honour – to win two felt rather overwhelming at the time and as I reflect on it now makes me feel quite emotional. Which over-indulgence I hope can be forgiven in the context of the hard slog it was to get The Vinegar Cupboard commissioned at all. It was a subject considered too niche by so many publishers – my eternal gratitude goes to Jon Croft and his team at Bloomsbury Absolute for having faith in me and it. I set out to write something that would take seriously this everyday ingredient, show how it is extraordinary as well as ordinary, demonstrate what impact it has on so much cooking, and unlock some of the cultural identities behind its incarnations around the world. I hope it has done that. 

Certainly these awards make me feel the hard work was justified. They will, I hope, help position The Vinegar Cupboard in the all-important sales market. And as I look ahead to a hoped-for Book Two, having these awards under my writing belt gives me extra confidence to stride to achieve more with my work in the future.’

 

Olivia Potts won the Food Writing Award (sponsored by Cawston Press) for work published in Slightly Foxed, The Guardian, Grazia, The Spectator and Glamour magazine

 

‘I'm so thrilled to have won this year's food writing award. The Guild of Food Writers has been a source of friendship and support since I began my food writing career, so it means the world to be recognised by the judges and the Guild.

‘My work for the award was varied, spanning grief and risotto, comfort cooking, eating pastries in Paris, and my love of both Junior Bake Off and Jane Grigson. I have always written about the emotional connection of cooking and eating, so it's particularly heartening to know that that resonates with readers and writers. I'm looking forward to writing more about how food moves and connects us over the coming year (and, I hope, for many years after that).’

 

Georgina Hayden won the Recipe Writing Award (sponsored by Gold Top) for work published in delicious. Magazine

 

‘It’s a huge cliche I am sure but winning the Guild’s Recipe Writing Award was a total shock (I burst into tears when I heard my name – probably a good thing it wasn't a real ‘do’ this year to be honest!) and such an honour. I've been working in food publishing (writing, styling, development) for over 15 years now, but have only been working solo – not part of an organisation – for the last 2 years. So to be recognised and win an award for my work means a hell of a lot to me. 

‘Before I went freelance I worked for magazines such as delicious and Sainsburys, then on to work for Jamie Oliver for 12 years working across his books, TV, PR, the lot. With my 2nd book (Taverna) coming out, I took the plunge and went solo. And within a few months Karen, the brilliant editor of delicious, asked me to write a monthly column for them. As any food writer will tell you, this is a dream come true. But for me it was bigger than that; delicious is where I started. Before I had even left university in 2005 I had written to them asking to do work experience. They were the first place I ever worked, where I discovered I wanted to write about and shoot food, and to go back there meant the world to me. And now, it is for this column that I won the award – full circle doesn’t even come close. For a year the brilliant team there enabled me to write my musings and recipes from my kitchen, and I will never be able to thank them enough for trusting me and agreeing to my ideas. So thank you to everyone at the Guild, the judges, Gold Top but also everyone at delicious for believing in me. Gwyneth speech over.’

 

Jimi Famurewa won the Restaurant Writing Award for work published in the Evening Standard's ES Magazine

‘To reflect on the reviews that won me this year's Guild of Food Writers Restaurant Writing Award – particularly as the hospitality industry gingerly emerges from months of lockdown – feels somewhat bittersweet. There was a love letter to the mega-portioned West African bustle at 805 on the Old Kent Road; a snapshot of an evening savouring face-slapping Sichuan flavours in the cramped confines of Hackney's all-vegan Mao Chow; and a composed, classy lunch at Flor in Borough that ended with the intense pleasure hit of oven-warm, fudgy brown butter cakes. They are dispatches from another time. 

‘But these reviews, I hope, speak to the strange, eclectic vitality that London's dining scene can hopefully manage to recapture in the coming months and years. Since I first became ES Magazine's restaurant critic, it has always been my aim to entertainingly highlight this variety, explore culture and truly put people in the room. To be recognised for this by the Guild – especially when I consider the high-bar set by my fellow nominees and the talents of this award's previous winners – truly means so much. Also: as a British-Nigerian, and a relatively new voice operating in a field where they are rare, the recognition feels especially acute. It is already making a professional difference in terms of bringing more people to my work. And, more significantly, it is a spur. Not just to keep approaching restaurant criticism in the way I have been. But to push on, to challenge myself, and to try to broaden the spectrum of the stories that I'm telling.’

 

Nina Caplan won the Drinks Writing Award (sponsored by Seven Crofts – Highland Liquor Co) for work published in New Statesman, Decanter, The Times and The Guardian

 

‘First, let me say how delighted I am that the Guild of Food Writers now has a Drinks Writer category: just as I don’t like to drink without food, I believe that a celebration of great food writing needs a liquid complement. Secondly, I’m thrilled to be the first winner of this category and feel grateful for the additional visibility and the opportunities that will come from association with this prestigious organisation.

‘What I love about wine is the breadth of its reach: you can talk about alcohol levels or soil types or barrel age, but you can also talk about personalities, places and politics. For the New Statesman columns that helped win me this award, I looked at the women who made Champagne great: widows, reared to be mothers and helpmeets, who burst those strictures with an effervescent determination that changed the way we drink. I learned which wines to match – or not match – with certain styles of Chinese food, and now instead of accompanying the Asian meals we cook with an alcohol-free beverage, we never have a night off booze at all. For my column in The Times’s luxury magazine, Luxx, I was lucky enough to take a private plane from Bordeaux to Burgundy, researching how altitude changes the way we taste. Which it does, far more than we realise: the wines that showed best thousands of feet above the ground they came from were a surprise to everyone on board.

‘As someone who lives part-time in Burgundy, I am always trying to find ways to make this intricate wine region comprehensible to people who are never going to spend four-figure sums on a bottle of Vosne-Romanée. So, for Decanter, I spoke to Les Aligoteurs: a group of winemakers in Burgundy’s legendary Côte d’Or who make the Pinot Noir and Chardonnay the region is renowned for… but are rather more interested in the potential of the despised Aligoté grape. And, because wine should always be a source of laughter, I had great fun scotching myths about rosé for The Guardian: pink is a colour I drink all year round, because anything that can brighten up the English winter is all right with me. Sharing our pleasures, in the glass, on the plate or on the page, is part of what makes us human; I feel privileged to share some of mine with the members of the GFW.’ 

 

BBC Good Food (Editor: Keith Kendrick) won the Food Magazine or Section Award (sponsored by Lakeland)

 

‘Winning this prestigious award means so much to the Good Food team: it’s the icing on the cake of 30 years as Britain’s biggest selling food magazine. We have been number one since our launch in 1989, and have stayed there ever since, and so it was fitting for us to enter our commemorative issue of September 2019 for the GFW awards. What a birthday present it was to find out we’d won!

‘Great recipes and articles about the world of food are at the heart of what we do, so this acknowledgment will spur us on to not only maintain the standards we’ve set for ourselves, but to strive to be better, to give a voice to talented writers from all backgrounds. It’s going to be an even more exciting year for Good Food than last year, so thanks to the GFW for this recognition and encouragement.’

 

Nicola Miller won the Online Food Writing Award (sponsored by Peter's Yard) for work published on Tales From Topographic Kitchens

 

‘I began my newsletter, Tales From Topographic Kitchens back in October 2017 as a way of collating my favourite pieces of food writing and food media in general. There's such a fast turnover in the food world and I felt that some really excellent pieces of writing were being lost because of this. Also, as time and debate move on, someone's writing can become what I think of as “recontextualised” and I wanted to find a way of exploring this. I write “Tales From Topographic Kitchens” because I enjoy it and for no other reason. The fact that other people like to read it too is a joy. I never had a particular goal or ambition for my newsletter other than to highlight and celebrate great food media but after two years, I plucked up the courage to enter the GFW awards and was both delighted and stunned to be shortlisted. And then I went on to win my category, Best Online Food Writer 2020. My fellow finalists, Aaron Vallance and Ed Smith are excellent writers and I was flattered to be nominated alongside them both so I do encourage you to sign up to their newsletters and in the case of Ed, buy his cookery books too. 

‘I'm not sure what lies in my future but I am working on several book proposals and have had conversations with agents. Recently I have written for Pit Magazine and I have my regular food column and features for Iliffe Media but I'd love to write for more publications. If you're looking for lively features about North American food in particular (and I include Mexico in this of course), please do get in touch because I'd love to write for you.’

 

Chris Wilkie (Plan Zheroes) won the Inspiration Award (sponsored by Comté Cheese)

 

‘Plan Zheroes aims to inspire businesses to donate their surplus food to local charities. Last year we helped redistribute 69,000 kg of food, the equivalent of 121,000 meals and a saving of 273 tonnes of equivalent CO2 emissions. Using our online platform, the businesses can post notifications about the food they have to donate and the charities can claim the food on a first-come-first-served basis. In addition, we hold twice weekly collections of food in London, at both Borough Market and at the Real Food Market at King's Cross. We are about resume these as current lockdown restrictions are eased.

The award will help to raise the profile of Plan Zheroes still further and we hope we can develop partnerships with the Guild and with Comté, the sponsors of the award, to inspire even more businesses to donate their surplus food at a time when so many people in the UK are suffering from food poverty.’

 

 

The Forager's Calendar: A Seasonal Guide to Nature’s Wild Harvest by John Wright (published by Profile Books) won the Food Book Award (sponsored by Westmorland)

 

‘The seasonality of food is but a memory for most of us. But for the forager, busy collecting blackberries, wild mushrooms, sea beet, dulse and a hundred more wild foods, it is everything. There is a purity about this, a connection with the food eaten quite unobtainable by buying Brussles sprouts in July and raspberries in December. Having collected wild foods for most of my life, such seasons were well known to me, so it seemed that a book which lists, describes and, indeed, celebrates wild food month by month would be a great help to both those new to foraging and those for whom a little reminder might be needed about what to look for and, of course, when.

‘My wife and I were sat on the sofa awaiting the announcement, our glasses of consolation poised for action. We both gasped when my book won and that gasp is with me still. Not that the surprise I felt has stopped me referring to myself as an award-winning writer to anyone prepared to listen. This is such a prestigious award and a great honour. It will certainly help with book sales and now I must scurry around bookshops, surreptitiously plastering the award sticker on its pretty covers!’

 

Fire Islands: Recipes from Indonesia by Eleanor Ford (published by Murdoch Books) won the International or Regional Cookbook Award (in partnership with Maple from Canada)

 

‘I’d like to extend a sincere thank you to the Guild for awarding “Fire Islands” Best International or Regional Cookbook. Writing about Indonesian cuisine and food culture was something I had been thinking about quietly through many years of being a recipe writer. It is a long under-recognised cuisine and I am delighted that these bold, bright flavours are starting to get the attention they deserve. 

‘For me, this award is wonderful recognition from peers in the sometimes isolated world of food writing. Next? Dreaming big, I’d love to write a recipe column one day.’

 

Midnight Chicken: & Other Recipes Worth Living For by Ella Risbridger (published by Bloomsbury Publishing) won the General Cookbook Award (sponsored by Thermapen®)

 

 

 

You can read what the judges thought about all of the finalists here. 

  

The Guild's partners for this year’s Awards are Cawston Press (Food Writing Award), Comté Cheese (Inspiration Award), The FoodTalk Show (Food Podcast or Broadcast Award), Gold Top (Recipe Writing Award), Lakeland (Food Magazine or Section Award), Maple from Canada (International or Regional Cookbook Award), Peter's Yard (Online Food Writing Award), Seven Crofts (Drinks Writing Award), Thermapen® (General Cookbook Award) and Westmorland: Tebay Services, Gloucester Services & Cairn Lodge Services (Food Book Award).

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