Victorians Nail It at the Royal Melbourne Fine Food Awards

If you're particularly excellent at nailing a sourdough, crafting a camembert or perfecting the art of the cracker, you'll be gunning for backslaps at the Royal Melbourne Fine Food Awards. In a nutshell, this is the Australian Olympics of Gourmet Noms.

Get ready for some acronyms. Run by the Royal Agricultural Society of Victoria (RASV), the Royal Melbourne Fine Food Awards (RMFFA) delve deeper than your umbrella restaurant/store awards, giving out medals for seriously niche producers. The awards were established to give national ups to Australia's best dips, oils, meats, jams, free-range eggs and more to both the wholesale industry and consumers. They've given out no less than 693 medals to date this season (164 gold, 299 silver and 230 bronze), a record number for the RMFFAs and significantly more than our Commonwealth Games taking. Why more shiny high fives? There's apparently been a 14% increase in overall entries — and their produce was just too damn good.

A serious Big Deal for the fine food industry, these are the categories (with some super niche subcategories):

SPRING 2014 CATEGORIES:

Branded Beef
Branded Lamb
Dairy
Sheep, Goat and Buffalo
Ice Cream Gelato and Sorbet
Delicatessen featuring Dips, Tapenade, Smallgoods and Uncooked Sausages
Extra Virgin Olive Oils and Flavoured Oils
Bread and Baked Goods
Free Range Eggs
Sweet and Savoury Preserves, featuring jams, vinegars and dressings

“The Awards see entries from a variety of producers, who are provided with a unique and valuable opportunity to benchmark, promote and market their produce and products under a recognised seal of quality and excellence. They provide a level playing field for all producers to be recognised on a national level,” says RASV CEO Mark O’Sullivan.

So how'd we do? Victorian breads nailed it, with Torquay's Zeally Bay organic artisan bakery picking up a first-time gold medal for their Southern Casalinga Sourdough in the White Sourdough class. "We entered not only to see where we sit but also to have a voice and to keep the integrity of the bread industry. We’re proud of our win, it enhances the credibility of what we’re doing at Zeally Bay and the response has been great so far," says Co-Founder John Farnan.

Apollo Bay's multi award-winning ice creamery Dooley's dominated the Ice Cream, Gelato and Sorbet realms, taking out no less than 19 gold medals (there's different categories for single flavour, multi flavour, no inclusions, with inclusions and then there's sorbet). If you dabble in iced confections, Dooley's are the crew to beat.

Cheese-wise Berrys Creek Gourmet Cheese (whose kickass tagline is "Dare to be Cultured") took out the Mould Ripened, Blue Mould or Cheese Containing Blue Mould category for their Tarwin Blue, while Preston-based Alberto's Delicacies nailed the Tapenade section with a gold for their olive concoction.

There's still more accolades to come for the RMFFAs, with the Extra Virgin Olive Oil and Flavoured Oil categories to be judged later this month. For now, the gold medallists now have to sit tight; the official Awards Presentation looms for September 22 with more trophies on the line. But there's opportunities to join an exclusive Buyers' Tasting in late August as well as a spot in the Royal Melbourne Fine Food Deli in the Tastes of Victoria Pavilion during the 2014 Royal Melbourne Show. Nothing to be sniffed at; as far as dominating the tapenade market goes, this is battin' in the majors.

For more info and announced winners, visit RASV.

For more info, visit RASV.