Great Taste, the world’s most trusted food and drink awards, has reached its grand finale for 2020, with the Great Taste Golden Fork from London & the South East presented to Bermondsey Street Honey from Bermondsey for its Royal Albert Dock Honey.

Foraged by bees on East London’s riverside beyond the Thames Barrier, collecting pollen and nectar principally from brownfield areas that were cleaned and returned to nature more than 20 years ago, this rich varietal honey had the Great Taste judges “eulogizing in the most florally descriptive terms”, heaping praise upon its “very complex nose and a luscious butterscotch hit right at the start on the palate, followed by a clean, round, mouth-filling sensation.”

Having impressed at every stage of the blind-tasted judging process, as a record-breaking 12,777 entries were assessed over 14 weeks of remote judging and socially distanced judging sessions, Royal Albert Dock Honey, which includes pioneer species such as Black Alder, Robinia, Dandelion and Willow among its many wild forage sources, was celebrated as the best tasting product in London & the South East during the virtual Great Taste Golden Fork award ceremony on Thursday 22 October.

Taking place across the Guild of Fine Food’s social media channels and website, the online event brought together food lovers, producers, retailers, buyers and chefs to discover this year’s stars of food and drink, providing a vital boost for the industry as the nation moves towards the most important Christmas period in a generation. Held later in the year than usual, after the lockdown interrupted judging just one week into the schedule, the Golden Fork trophy announcements are the final instalment in a Great Taste calendar that has been reinvented at every stage, in order to stimulate much-needed consumer support for independent retail and hospitality over the challenging months ahead.

This year’s panel of judges included; cook, writer and champion of sustainable food, Melissa Hemsley, cook, writer, stylist and voice of modern vegetarian cooking, Anna Jones, celebrated Spanish chef, José Pizarro, Kavi Thakrar from Dishoom, food writer and cook, Xanthe Clay, and baker and author, Martha Collison, as well as food buyers from Selfridges, Fortnum & Mason and Waitrose. These esteemed palates tasted and re-judged the 3-star winners to finally agree on the Golden Fork trophy winners and the Great Taste 2020 Supreme Champion.