Village shops champion completes Great Taste Gold Awards hat-trick

The award winning Welsh Dragon sausage and bacon wrap from Neuadd Fach Baconry
The award winning Welsh Dragon sausage and bacon wrap from Neuadd Fach Baconry

A successful Mid Wales baconry which champions village shops celebrated a hat-trick of gold awards in the 2016 Great Taste Awards, the Oscars of the food world.

Neuadd Fach Baconry, Llandinam, near Llanidloes won a coveted two star gold award from the Guild of Fine Food for its Welsh Dragon sausage and bacon wrap. The family-run business also added one star gold awards for its streaky bacon and thick streaky bacon.

The baconry, which also won a two star gold last year for its lemon and chilli wrap, has now won 35 Great Taste Awards over the past 15 years.

Out of 10,000 products entered this year, just 35 per cent were accredited, with 141 achieving the highest three star gold rating, 878 achieving two stars and 2,520 were awarded one star.

Neuadd Fach Baconry’s portfolio of around 100 products are produced from pigs grown and cured by Lynda and Ethyl Brown on the family farm.

They have been rearing pigs since 1986 and now employ five part-time staff in the business, which has been operating since 1999.

"We have always felt that the Great Taste Awards set the benchmark because products are independently judged for taste and quality," said Lynda.

"There is a different judge every for our products every year and we have entered for the last 15 years.

"Winning a gold award is an endorsement that our products are top quality. We are delighted to have won a two star gold award for the second year running for a wrap and hope these awards will encourage more people will go to their local shop in Montgomeryshire to buy our products.

"We consider ourselves champions of the village shop and post offices in Montgomeryshire by supplying them.

"The bulk of our products are sold through these shops, but we also hope to increase online sales through our new website.

"Our busiest time is during the summer when tourists buy our products and we also have many customers who stop to buy our bacon in village shops as they travel through Wales We take large and small orders, which can be collected in the shops where we sell our products."