Entry deadline extension! And a weekly roundup...
We've put together a weekly roundup including a cheeky deadline extension for you, some information on the opportunity to create a product for the Dunnes Stores Simply Better range and a little more information about our judging process, which we hope you'll find useful.
FINAL ENTRY DEADLINE: Friday 26 May
This year we are celebrating 10 years of the IQFDAs and it's going to be bigger and better than ever...
Due to overwhelming demand, we have kindly extended the entry deadline for this year's Irish Quality Food and Drink Awards by an additional week for you - just to make sure you have time to get your entries in. Whether you have already submitted your entries and you'd like to make some amends, your entries have been sitting in your basket and you haven't quite managed to find the time to finalise them or you've only just discovered the Irish Quality Food and Drink Awards and would still love to enter - this extension deadline is for you.
For those of you who are familiar with the Irish Qs, welcome back! This is our 10th year and we are delighted to see some familiar faces submitting entries and engaging with our content across our social media channels. We have a formula that works, and we're proud of - a stringent judging process that has been tried and tested and evolved over the 44 years that our sister awards, the UK Quality Food Awards have been running.
For those of you who are new here, and perhaps only just discovered us this year, welcome! We are delighted to have you here. The Irish Qs have a reputation for being the most prestigious food and drink awards in Ireland, thanks to our stringent judging process. We have an enviable judging panel that we encourage you to familiarise yourselves with, over on our Meet the Judges page here. Unlike other awarding bodies in this sector, our judging panel comprises of industry experts such as chefs, product developers and consultants. We don't blind-taste products either, so our judges can take into consideration all the elements of your product that you've put so much time into including your branding and packaging.
We do still have some spaces available for judges this year, so if you would like to be involved then please get in touch - we would love to hear from you! More information on the judging process and how it all works can be found here.
You may have seen by now that our Small Producer category, sponsored by Dunnes Simply Better, is open for businesses whose turnover is less than €1 million and have fewer than 10 staff. If you meet this simple criteria then you can benefit from a heavily reduced entry fee of €125 per product plus entry into a bonus FREE category giving you the chance to win the opportunity to create a product for the Dunnes Simply Better Range! By completing the form on the Small Producer page here you will instantly receive the discount code, which can be used for as many categories as you wish.
If you have any questions about the entry process then please don't hesitate to contact our team, who will be more than happy to help. Their details can be found in the website footer below or over on our Contact Page here. Head over to this page here to browse our vast range of categories and submit your entries.
Good luck - we are so excited to try your wonderful products!