2012 Award Winners NATURAL FOOD AWARD 2012

Country Choice, Nenagh, Co Tipperary

The Guide has always championed the best of Irish produce. It’s the philosophy behind our food recommendations and the Natural Food Award has emphasised this for many years, by specifically celebrating establishments that create a meeting point between the best and freshest local produce and the consumer. The original aim was to recognise specifically “an individual or team, driven by a total commitment to using the very best of fresh, seasonal and mainly local foods – and preparing them simply and with style, to showcase their natural goodness and the quality produce of the locality”. This year we’ve decided to extend the criteria to include food products, producers and retailers as well, along the lines of entries in our regional food tourism guide, Ireland for Food Lovers.

And where better to begin than with an establishment – coffee shop, retailer and artisan producer - that celebrates the simple good foods of the locality in simple words “Meats, milk, cream, eggs, butter and flour: The economy of Tipperary is agricultural and we intend to demonstrate this with a finished product of tantalising smells and tastes.”

And how. Nothing but the best is ever acceptable here and, while Peter (a TASTE Council member and former chairman by the way) is the hunter gatherer of the partnership - and also the public face of this iconic business, in the original premises in Nenagh, at Limerick’s newly refurbished Milk Market and at many food events around Ireland and abroad – Mary is the backroom girl, busying herself (along with other family members) with making the thousand or so Christmas puddings and many thousands of jars of jam and other treats that are made and sold in the shop each year...

Nobody knows more about natural food than the Wards in Country Choice of Nenagh - what a team!