A Mayo based producer has secured a 2023 Irish Food Writers’ Guild Food Award.

With just eight prestigious awards nationally presented to artisan food producers, Velvet Cloud Sheep’s Milk Yogurt was one of a select few honoured this year.

Claremorris-based family-owned business Velvet Cloud won a Food Award for its Sheep’s Milk Yogurt.

This is how the judges scored the product:

“Irish Food Award -Velvet Cloud Sheep’s Milk Yogurt

“There’s something ethereal about Velvet Cloud Sheep’s Milk Yogurt. Crack open a fresh pot of their velvet-by-name, velvet-by-nature yogurt, and its purity hits you immediately. Pristine white; there is goodness in there – you can see it. You can taste it too. “Nothing added, nothing strained away,” the label says, just the pure, natural goodness of sheep’s milk from an almost 400-strong flock on the Flanagan family farm near Claremorris, Co Mayo. The texture and flavour of Velvet Cloud Sheep’s Milk Yogurt is outstanding; thick, rich and creamy with a refreshingly light tang. Nutritionally, it punches above its weight with a higher-than-average protein yield, alongside probiotics and live cultures.  

“This is a supremely versatile product. Eaten on its own, the yogurt is a pleasure in itself, but it performs magical things in sauces, marinades, drinks, bakes and desserts. Aisling and Michael refer to it as their hero product. For all its uses, adaptions and marriages with so many other kitchen staples, it’s a hero of home cooks everywhere.”

The full list of winners of the 2023 Irish Food Writers’ Guild Food Awards:

1. Food Award:Smoked Lough Neagh Eel, Co Antrim
2. Food Award:Velvet Cloud Sheep’s Milk Yogurt, Co Mayo
3. Food Award:Ballylisk of Armagh, Co Armagh
4. Irish Drink Award:Beoir Chorcha Dhuibhne for Béal Bán, Co Kerry
5. Outstanding Contribution to Irish Food:Gabriel Faherty, Aran Island Goats’ Cheese, Co Galway
6. Environmental Award:The Wooded Pig, Co Meath
7. Community Food Award:Field of Dreams – Down Syndrome Cork, Co Cork
8. Lifetime Achievement Award:Kevin and Seamus Sheridan, Co Galway