For the first time in the history of the awards, the BFFF invited a guest member judge to experience the judging process of the British Frozen Food Awards. Lee Tynan, Food Development Director at Creative Foods, took part in a judging panel at Barnsley food college to understand the complexities involved in judging for the British Frozen Food Awards.

Lee said: “Before I attended the Barnsley panel, I was sceptical of the judging process for the British Frozen Food Awards, so I welcomed the opportunity to attend and understand how the BFFF runs the British Frozen Food Awards judging”.

The British Frozen Food Awards are entering their thirty-fifth edition with some of the biggest names in retail and foodservice taking home the top prizes.

Lee added: “I got the full experience at the panel; the scoring criteria, the way the products were presented by the chefs at Barnsley and the judges assessing each product individually and realistically through the digital marking platform.”

The judging panel marks hundreds of products across two days in Barnsley assessing the taste, appearance, packaging and innovation of each of the products.

Lee’s final comments on his experience of the British Frozen Food Awards judging: “It was a very good eye opener for me. There’s nobody there trying to get you to judge in a particular way. The entire panel was organised and managed by a third-party agency. I don’t think the panel could have been organised any better. The process of the chefs cooking the products and presenting them to the panel to dishing it up to assess the taste was very efficient and can proudly say I enjoyed the entire judging process”.

To ensure full unbiased opinions throughout the judging process, Lee was asked to leave the room in the categories which Creative Foods had entered. By the time Lee came back into the room for the next category, all products were taken away, so Lee did not see any products involved in that category.

The BFFF are very proud of the judging panels for the British Frozen Food Awards and will be looking to invite more guest member judges in the future, to learn about the impressive work the British Frozen Food Award judging panels do for the industry.

Entries are still open until the 30th of November, so make sure you get your products booked – Enter today