Three Asheville food companies received national recognition last week when they snagged 2015 Good Food Awards for their products. Looking Glass Creamery of Fairview was honored for its Connemara goat cheese, and in the chocolate category, Black Mountain Chocolate received recognition for its Mountain Milk Bar, and French Broad Chocolates was honored for its 68-percent cacao Nicaraguan chocolate bar.
The products were among 130 U.S. food and beverage items to be selected for the award this year. Looking Glass Creamery had the only North Carolina cheese product to win an award.
Looking Glass makes its Connemara cheese from goat’s milk sourced from Round Mountain Creamery in Black Mountain. It is a firm cheese that is aged for two to three months. The cheese was named after the Flat Rock farmstead of poet Carl Sandaburg in honor of his wife, Lilian “Paula” Sandburg, a pioneer in the world of dairy goats.
The Mountain Milk Bar, also made with goat milk, is Black Mountain Chocolate’s first milk chocolate bar. With 53 percent cacao, it swings to the darker side of the milk-chocolate spectrum.
French Broad Chocolates’ winning product is its 68-percent cacao bar made with certified organic cane sugar and single-origin cacao beans sourced in Matagalpa, Nicaragua.
Now in its fifth year, the Good Food Awards were created through a collaboration of food producers, farmers, food journalists and independent grocers organized by Seedling Projects. The team nominates expert judges from across the country to choose more than 100 winners from five regions of the country in multiple categories ranging from beer to pickles. This year’s winners were honored at a ceremony held in the Palace of Fine Arts Theater in San Francisco on Thursday, Jan. 8. The winning foods were presented for sampling at the event.
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