A SMOKED Salmon company’s premier product has won its second international culinary gold medal.
Grants Oak Smoked’s Traditional Rope Hung Smoked Scottish Salmon has been awarded the 2019 Monde Selection Gold Award.
The Monde Selection panel of 70 international independent experts, rate the finest food and drink from across the globe not just on taste, but also chemically and biologically test products to ensure the ingredients, provenance and nutritional information are accurate.
The awards have been run since 1961 and this year more than 2,000 products from hundreds of countries were tested.
Grants Oak Smoked has been based in Maryport, Cumbria, since 1984 and currently employs more than 100 people. It supplies smoked salmon and other products to retailers, hotels, caterers and food companies across the globe.
The owner, Jonathan Brown, who set up the company straight after leaving school, said: “We are obviously delighted independent experts have once again recognised our rope hung smoked salmon as one of the world’s premier products.
“Our rope hung smoked salmon is a return to the traditional methods of the past. We choose only the finest Scottish fish from suppliers with the highest aquaculture and environmental standards, and then hand cure it in sea salt before rope hanging the salmon in a brick open fire kiln.
“It is then smoked over oak chips from whisky barrels and constantly supervised for up to 72 hours, before being removed and left to rest for another 24 hours.
“When requested, it is then hand sliced. Not a single side leaves us without the master smoker’s personal seal of approval.
“It is a labour-intensive, time-consuming process but the result is a smoked salmon which can sit alongside the finest foods from across the globe.
“The 2019 Gold Monde award – the product’s second – is testament to the care and attention to detail we lavish on all our products and follows on from the Great Taste three-star award it won in 2017.”
