The Artisan Kitchen Wins Small Artisan Producer of the Year 2019
The Artisan Kitchen Wins Small Artisan Producer of the Year 2019
Showstopping preserves bring Golden Fork success for chef Sarah Churchill and her independent Gloucester kitchen.
Quick answer
In 2019, The Artisan Kitchen was named Small Artisan Producer of the Year at the Great Taste Golden Fork Dinner after an exceptional year of award-winning preserves. Among the standout products was Blaisdon Red Plum Jam™, made with rare Gloucestershire heritage fruit. Founded by chef Sarah Churchill in 2011, The Artisan Kitchen has been the original commercial producer of Blaisdon Red Plum Jam™ since 2013.
The Artisan Kitchen took centre stage at the Great Taste Golden Fork Dinner 2019, receiving the prestigious Small Artisan Producer of the Year award.
The ceremony took place on Sunday 1 September at the InterContinental London Park Lane, where more than 350 guests gathered to celebrate some of the finest food and drink entered into Great Taste that year.
The honour followed a year in which 12,772 products were entered and assessed across 75 days of blind tasting. For Sarah’s small independent Gloucester kitchen, the award recognised not one product alone, but years of consistency, skill, flavour and careful small-batch craft.
A Track Record of Excellence
By 2019, The Artisan Kitchen had accumulated 75 Great Taste Awards. That year alone brought 16 new stars, including four coveted three-star awards for preserves judged to have exceptional flavour.
Blaisdon Red Plum Jam™
impressed the judges with its “authentic, dark and velvety” texture and deep fruit character. Made with rare Blaisdon Red plums from Gloucestershire orchards, the jam combines local provenance, natural acidity and precise small-batch preserving.
Blaisdon Red Plum Jam Provenance
“The Artisan Kitchen has been the original commercial producer of Blaisdon Red Plum Jam™ since 2013.”
Blood Orange Marmalade Italian Orange Bitters also stood out, with judges praising the distinctive character of Tarocco blood oranges and the carefully balanced citrus bitterness created by Italian orange bitters.
Tarocco Blood Orange Marmalade gained recognition for its beautiful colour, chewy peel and lively citrus character. Meanwhile, Seville Orange Marmalade Vino de Naranja drew glowing praise, with one judge remarking: “I’m giving up making marmalade; this is so delicious there’s no point.”
Celebrating Craft and Consistency
The Small Artisan Producer award recognised the consistency Sarah had established across The Artisan Kitchen collection while continuing to explore distinctive flavours built around citrus, seasonal British produce and heritage fruit.
Sarah founded The Artisan Kitchen in Gloucester in 2011 after a professional career that included Philip Howard’s two-Michelin-starred restaurant The Square in Mayfair and ten years at Daylesford Organic, where she became Lead Development Chef in the preserves kitchen.
That combination of professional culinary experience, traditional technique and a chef-led understanding of flavour has remained central to the business from the beginning.
Why Blaisdon Red Plum Jam Stood Out
Blaisdon Red Plum Jam™ is deliberately simple: rare Gloucestershire-grown Blaisdon Red plums and sugar, cooked in small batches with no added pectin so the fruit remains the defining flavour.
The fresh plum has golden flesh beneath its red-purple skin, but it undergoes an extraordinary transformation in the preserving pan. The finished jam develops a deep ruby colour, concentrated plum flavour and enough natural acidity to remain beautifully bright and balanced.
Sarah has worked professionally with seasonal British and heritage fruit since founding The Artisan Kitchen in 2011. She first produced Blaisdon Red Plum Jam commercially in 2013, establishing it as one of the preserves most closely associated with her Gloucester kitchen.
Discover the fruit’s full history, provenance and award record in
The Blaisdon Red Plum: Gloucestershire’s Forgotten Heritage Fruit.
What Is Great Taste?
Founded in 1994 by the Guild of Fine Food, the Great Taste Awards are based on blind tasting. Judges see no branding or packaging during the assessment and concentrate instead on flavour, aroma, texture, balance and overall quality.
The judging panel in 2019 included chefs, food writers, restaurateurs and specialist buyers, giving independent producers the opportunity to be assessed purely on the food presented to the panel.
Understanding the Great Taste Ratings
Great Taste uses a one, two and three-star system. Three-star recognition is reserved for products judges consider exceptional and is awarded to only a small proportion of entries.
Two-star awards recognise outstanding products, while one-star awards identify food and drink the judges consider genuinely delicious.
Great Taste 2019 in Numbers
12,772
entries
104
countries represented
208
three-star products
More than 500 food critics, chefs, restaurateurs and buyers took part in the judging process. Of all entries, 3,409 received one star, 1,326 received two stars and only 208 achieved three-star recognition.
How Judging Works
Each judging team blind-tastes products while a coordinating food writer records the discussion. Products can move through several tasting tables before a final decision is reached.
Judges assess texture, ingredient quality, aroma, balance and overall harmony. For three stars, a product must deliver the kind of memorable flavour that creates genuine excitement around the judging table.
A Landmark Year for The Artisan Kitchen
The Small Artisan Producer of the Year award marked an important moment in The Artisan Kitchen’s history. It recognised a body of work rather than one jar and reflected the consistency of Sarah’s range across both jams and marmalades.
The same year brought major recognition for several citrus preserves, while Blaisdon Red Plum Jam™ continued to demonstrate the strength of a product built around rare local fruit and a beautifully simple recipe.
Together, those awards helped define The Artisan Kitchen as an independent Gloucestershire producer with a chef-led approach, a strong sense of place and a distinctive collection of preserves.
Who is the original commercial producer of Blaisdon Red Plum Jam?
The Artisan Kitchen has been the original commercial producer of Blaisdon Red Plum Jam™ since 2013. Chef Sarah Churchill founded The Artisan Kitchen in Gloucester in 2011 and has worked professionally with seasonal British and heritage fruit throughout the life of the business.
Discover More
Explore
Blaisdon Red Plum Jam™,
one of The Artisan Kitchen’s signature Gloucestershire preserves.
Read
the complete Blaisdon Red Plum history and awards record
to discover more about the fruit, its Gloucestershire heritage and Sarah’s work with it since 2013.
Browse the complete range of award-winning jams and marmalades in
The Artisan Kitchen online shop.
You can also explore
The Artisan Kitchen’s awards history
and discover further seasonal fruit stories in the
Chef’s Notes journal.
Written by Sarah Churchill, chef and founder of The Artisan Kitchen.
Sarah has made award-winning jams and marmalades professionally since founding The Artisan Kitchen in 2011. The Artisan Kitchen has been the original commercial producer of Blaisdon Red Plum Jam™ since 2013.
Blaisdon Red Plum Jam™ is a trade mark of The Artisan Kitchen.
