News

Sky Park Farm Butchery have excelled at the Great Taste Awards 2023, the world’s most coveted food and drink awards and officially make the best unsmoked bacon in the South of England!

All four of butcher Hawie and his team’s bacons entered were awarded the highly accredited Great Taste 2 stars. Trained in Johannesburg, Hawie worked throughout South Africa and within a number of environments in the UK, specialising in product development at some of the leading food outlets, including Harrods and Harvey Nicholls. He is proud to produce bacon using the traditional method of dry-curing and he carefully ensures the meat is salted and smoked to perfection.Hawie has been a member of the Sky Park team since inauguration. “The team and I take pride in our work, customer feedback is always important to us and the combination has resulted in these Great Taste Awards – international recognition – which we are thrilled about. Now we need to plan our 2024 entries…!” Perhaps the recently introduced biltong range will feature?

14,195 products were put through the competition’s rigorous blind judging process (a panel of over 500 judges and products from 109 countries) and Sky Park Farm Shop’s produce received exceptional feedback from judges “a superb rasher of bacon.” (Unsmoked Streaky Bacon), “A bacon with beauty… a delicious product” (Smoked Back Bacon). “The bacon was very well smoked and succulent…looks great and is cut well, with a great proportion of meat to fat.” (Smoked Dry Cured Streaky Bacon) “These are succulent pieces of bacon… The fat is crispy, the meat is tender and it is easy to cut” (Unsmoked Back Bacon). Described as “a really enjoyable bacon that is brilliantly balanced and well produced… The judges loved the cure flavour and smokiness and found this very high-quality bacon”. 4,088 products were awarded a Great Taste 1-star – ‘food and drink that delivers fantastic flavour’, 1,568 were awarded a Great Taste 2-star – ‘above and beyond delicious’, and 248 were awarded a Great Taste 3-star – ‘extraordinarily tasty food and drink’.

All four award-winning bacons are available to purchase from our butchery counter