The winners of the 2014 sofi Awards were announced at a red-carpet ceremony at the Summer Fancy Food Show in New York, with East Hampton Gourmet Food’s Lentil Rice Crispbread with Sesame and Pink Salt voted Outstanding New Product of the year.
Acclaimed pastry chef Dominique Ansel – creator of the Cronut, a croissant-doughnut hybrid – presented the awards that are considered the top honor in the $88.3 billion specialty food industry. This year’s contest was the largest in its 42-year history, with specialty food makers submitting 2,737 products across all 32 awards categories.
This spring, a national panel of specialty food professionals convened over eight days to taste and evaluate all entries and select 125 finalists. To determine the winners, 275 buyers at the Summer Fancy Food Show sampled the finalist products and cast votes for their favorite in each category. An outside accounting firm tabulated the results.
Click here to view all of the 2014 sofi Award winners.
The awards are open to members of the Specialty Food Association, a not-for-profit trade association for food artisans, importers and entrepreneurs. “sofi” stands for specialty outstanding food innovation.
“The creativity and passion our members bring to their foods and beverages was evident in the variety and quality of the contest entries this year,” said Ann Daw, Specialty Food Association president. “The winners clearly reflect our brand for the industry, ‘Specialty Food. Craft. Care. Joy.’”
