To enter Great Taste, you will need to create a MyGuild account. If you haven’t already set up an account, register here. Your MyGuild account is where you will manage your entries.  

To register, please go to MyGuild  and click “Register for MyGuild”. You’ll be guided through a step-by-step process to set up your account. It only takes a few minutes to complete. 

You do not need to be a Guild of Fine Food member to enter Great Taste. However, there are many benefits to being a member outside of Great Taste, including year-round support for your business, an enhanced listing on our directory, use of the Guild membership logo, as well as many more fantastic opportunities, including discounted entry for Great Taste and free Great Taste logos for small and medium-sized producers.

Great Taste usually opens for entry in early December. It closes when we reach capacity for entries, or at the advertised deadline, whichever comes sooner.  A full list of the key dates can be found here. We recommend registering for a MyGuild account as soon as you know you’re interested in order to receive regular email updates from us.

We cap entries to ensure that we deliver the judging process with thoroughness and integrity. Currently, we cannot accept more than 14,500 entries and we may have to close entry early if that limit is reached. Make sure you submit your products early to avoid disappointment!  

All entry information, including costs can be found here. Our entry fees are kept as low as possible and are banded according to the size of your company, meaning smaller companies pay less than bigger companies.  It’s very important to us that fees are not a barrier to entry. If you are a new business, you may be eligible to enter our bursary scheme, where successful applicants are entitled to enter one product for free.  

Great Taste is for all food and drink producers, which is why we want to make sure that no matter the size of your business, you have the opportunity to achieve the Great Taste seal of approval and the recognition your product deserves. The Great Taste Bursary has been specifically designed for emerging micro producers who might normally find the entry fees and process prohibitive.  Full details for the Great Taste Bursary and how to apply can be found here.  Even if you don’t manage to gain a bursary place, Great Taste is open to producers of all sizes , as long as your product is commercially available. 

Categories are used for logistical purposes only and help us run the blind judging process. They also help interested consumers and trade buyers find your product on our directory when results come out.  Each entry is judged on its own merit, not against others in the same category and every product entered is eligible for an award. A full list of categories for Great Taste can be found here. We recommend entering the category which is most closely linked to your product and not to worry about an exact match if you can’t find it.  

Full details of how your product will be prepared and tasted can be found here. 

Some products are ineligible for entry as we believe they cannot be judged fairly and consistently within the parameters of the Great Taste judging process. A full list of ineligible products can be found here. We try to be as inclusive as possible, however the Guild of Fine Food reserve the right to deny entry of any product deemed not to be in the true spirit of the awards.  

Depending on the type of product you are entering, we have specific categories for products which are marketed as plant-based/vegan. If your product is specifically designed for the vegetarian or vegan (or another free-from) market, please make this clear to judges in the “What is it” and “Description” fields as this is the information that judges will see.  

Where possible, we endeavour to be flexible with our delivery dates, where there is a legitimate reason to be. Seasonal products that are not commercially available at the time of judging are welcome, as long as they have previously been, and will again be, commercially available with exactly the same recipe and in exactly the same format when in season (e.g. Christmas chutney). 

All 1-, 2- and 3-stars are valid for three years from the results publication date. After this, the award label or logo must be removed from the product’s packaging and promotional material, e.g. web pages or adverts. 

We believe that three years is a fair length of time to maintain an award for a specific product.  It prevents an entrant having to enter every year, but at the same time, allows for changes in taste and the market to be acknowledged in the judging process. All producers must abide by the brand guidelines as part of the agreement to use the logos on their products.  Any products seen to be displaying out of date logos will be followed up by our team. If at any point the product ingredients or production process changes, then the award is invalid from that point. 

Sometimes there are instances where an award logo that is more than three years old or a logo without a year or star rating is displayed. If you see this, please email [email protected] with details of the product and where you spotted it. Please send a photograph if possible. 

Great Taste is unique in that all entrants, regardless or not of whether they win an award are given written feedback.  All feedback is made available for entrants via their MyGuild account. On results day, you will be able to log in and view your results as well as detailed feedback on each of your entries. Each product will have separate sets of comments, which reflects the feedback given by the different judging tables that assessed your product. Downloadable certificates will also be available for any award winners, and this is also where you can order logo artwork or printed labels for your products. 

Through our unique judging process, your product will be exposed to several different judging teams to ensure there is consensus on your result. The judges on each team come from a wide range of backgrounds and disciplines to best represent the diversity of the food and drink industry and consumer opinion.  The star rating for each product is the result of a democratic process of your product moving around the judging teams.  The objective of our judging process is to remove as much subjectivity as is possible, but the comments are a true reflection of what each individual table found during their tasting.  We believe that it’s important for all entrants to have sight of all feedback their product receives as part of the judging process.

No, all products are blind–tasted and judges are only given the details highlighted in the entry form (Category, What is it?, Description).  Our blind judging process dictates that previous award information cannot be disclosed to the judges. This is to eliminate bias and ensure that there is an even playing field for every product entered.

Full guidelines on the correct quantity to send can be found here.  We will email you at least two weeks before your delivery date, with details of when and where to send your product. Please do not send your entries before you have received your delivery instructions. This is particularly relevant for short shelf-life products.  Please ensure shelf-life details on your entry form are completed correctly to enable us to schedule your delivery date accordingly.  

The Great Taste Golden Forks provide the opportunity for extra recognition to products that have achieved a 3-star award in a given year. 3-star rated products are invited to be re-judged and scored by our panel of expert judges in early July. They are also invited to be professionally photographed and feature in our 3-star brochure. This second round of judging determines the top scoring products by region, which leads to our Golden Forks and Supreme Champion winners.  The Great Taste Golden Forks and Supreme Champion are revealed live, in front of buyers, journalists, chefs and the other nominees, at our annual Golden Forks award ceremony each September.

The Great Taste judging panel consists of over 500 food and drink experts. It is made up of food critics, chefs, recipe creators, buyers, retailers, producers and other specialists across the industry.  Each year, the Guild team evaluate the roster, looking for a diverse mix of people based on their expertise, age, gender, discipline and cultural background and experience, as well as a mix of old and new faces. This is to ensure there are as many different palates as possible in the room and that the panel can best represent a broad spectrum of industry expertise.  Within the general panel are also a number of product-specific specialists who are called upon for dedicated judging days to lend their expertise to judge those products. These include coffee, tea (including herbal), matcha, chilli & hot, plant-based, beer and cider, spirits, and low & no alcohol.