YOUR SERVING - Food Mitch Part 3 - 151225

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome back. It's both this morning talking with Mitch Spung,
the GM of operations for the Fine Food Awards and
the Royal Agricultural Society of Tasmania. Now we've gone through
some of the winners that we've had so far, are
there any other specific winners that we should be mentioning
here throughout the course of the chat.

Speaker 2 (00:15):
I think it's just really important to encourage everyone to
go to our website Art showground dot com do Au
and follow through to the Fine Food Awards page and
take a look at the results catalog so you can
see what companies from across the country have won gold medals,
silver medals and all the different trophies we've announced throughout
the year, and especially the Tasmanian companies that have won those,

(00:38):
go out and support them during the year.

Speaker 1 (00:40):
Now, very similar to the Wine Show here, it's not
just a one person gets a gold, one gets a silver,
one gets a bronze. This isn't a running race. It's
like a standard right, like an ABC in high school.

Speaker 2 (00:51):
Absolutely so judging stan out of one hundred, so you
might have five different products win at guard medal and
then they would all get rejudged to then be able
to win the champion of their section. So if, for example, dairy,
you might have five different cheeses that are all really
high quality and then we have to try and choose
between one to decide the best.

Speaker 1 (01:10):
That's that's a damn shame. I assume you don't have
to spit the cheese out. It's only with alcohol like wine,
where you're not encouraged to drink everything you sip.

Speaker 2 (01:18):
That's right. The Wine Show, they definitely have to spit
out everything they taste, but a lot of the food
judges will not have to get rid of the cheese
and make the most of it.

Speaker 1 (01:26):
So it's important also to know, like what do you
get out of becoming a metal winner.

Speaker 2 (01:31):
Sure, so for a lot of companies, the opportunity to
put a gold or silver metal sticker or a champion
sticker on their product and on their label is really important.
And we get feedback from a lot of different companies
that then say their sales of a certain product went
through the roof because it had a gold metal sticker
on it. And that goes for the Wine Show as well.
Anything with a gold metal sticker always stands out when

(01:52):
you're in the shops. We have the Royal Agricultural Society
and the Royal has Fine Food Awards on each sticker,
and they're in a little shape of Tasmania so that
people can rarely say that it's the Tasmanian Awards and
not one of the awards run on the mainland.

Speaker 1 (02:05):
If you are interested in getting into it in the future,
you have said that the judging takes place when things
are in their prime. Does that mean now that it's
finished and we've just had the awards now and everybody's
had their big you know, hurrah, you guys get straight
back into it.

Speaker 2 (02:19):
No, so we get straight back into planning for next year.

Speaker 1 (02:22):
Yep.

Speaker 2 (02:22):
But most of the judging takes place between April and
August each year. So we open up entries through our
website in early twenty twenty five ready for all the
different sections which are run through the year.

Speaker 1 (02:34):
Now, if people get a bit confused or have questions
to ask, is there a way to contact the Royal
Agricultural Society of Tasmania just to clear up any issues
that they may have.

Speaker 2 (02:42):
Sure, so you can do it through the Hobart Showground website.
You can go to the Royals Fine Food Awards Facebook page,
or you can call the Royal ag Society directly and
we can definitely help you with anything you need. Now.

Speaker 1 (02:55):
This also encompasses the Wine show as well, so the
fine food and the wine do go kind of hand
in hand. Is it all run alongside each other.

Speaker 2 (03:03):
Very similar. So we have the same team of staff
running both events, so they're pretty busy through the year
making sure that both events are going to run smoothly.
And then we try to link things together as much
as possible, put different companies in place where there might
be links between them, and also try and promote the
winning products as much as we can. We had some
of the winning products we're in Hill Street Grosser for

(03:24):
example this year. Yep, every opportunity we can find to
try and help the winners and the people that support
the awards.

Speaker 1 (03:30):
So I guess the thing is, if you've held off
and you've been thinking, oh no, maybe I can't be
bothered or whatnot, now it's the sort of time to
start thinking about it. Have a look on the website,
have a look at your opportunity to get involved next year.

Speaker 2 (03:40):
The more people can get in touch with us now
and find out and talk about the awards, the better,
and any opportunity you can have to have your product
judge by an expert judging panel and compare them to
products from across the country, the better.

Speaker 1 (03:53):
Mitch, thank you very much for having a chat with
us today. It's been awesome, no worries.

Speaker 2 (03:56):
Thanks for having me.

Speaker 1 (03:56):
We've been chatting with it Mitch Smung the GM of
operations for the Fine Food Awards and the Royal Agricultural
Society of Tasmania. If you'd like to find out more
or get involved in next year, jump onto their website
and check it out. It's seven eight joe ffm. This
has been your serving