This year manufacturers are being encouraged to battle it out for the honour of using one of the awards' striking yellow winners’ logos on their products, with entries for 2013 opening on Monday, September 17th.
The overall winner will get to keep the FAIR trophy, ‘Marble Mo’, for a year and use the title of Best Freefrom Food 2013.
To qualify for the awards foods must be free of at least one, and preferably several, of those ingredients (wheat, gluten, dairy products, eggs, yeast, soya, sugar etc) associated with the many chronic health problems that plague the 21st century.
Entries will be judged by a panel of 50-plus judges including chefs, freefrom cookery writers, dietitians, nutritionists, food industry professionals, ‘freefrom bloggers’, coeliacs, those living with acute food allergies and a sprinkling of 'normal' people, both laymen and food professionals, to benchmark the products against their ‘non-freefrom’ equivalents.
The two new categories are Children’s Food and Foods Manufactured in a Nut-Free Environment, while two categories have been greatly expanded.
Ready Meals is now subdivided into Meat Meal Centres, Pizzas, Pies & Pasties, and One Pot Meals - to include 'world food'.
And Food Service is now divided into Savoury and Sweet.
The closing date for entries is December 12th, judging will be in early February, with the short list published later the same month.
The presentation of the awards is scheduled for April 16th to be hosted by Antony Worral Thompson.
For more information visit http://www.freefromfoodawards.co.uk/.