BOOST YOUR VISIBILITY WITH THE BEST OF CONTEST

Anticipate trends, take part in the Best Of Contest

 

The Best Of award guarantees quality, enabling the winners to distinguish their products and establish their reputation in the delicatessen and gourmet food sector.

Who can participate?

Are you an exhibitor at Gourmet Selection? Register your innovative product for free in the Best Of competition in your Exhibitor area.

 

Which products can be submitted?

Your food products and services launched in 2025 or 2026. Products that have already won Best Of Awards cannot be re-entered.

Can't decide which product to showcase? You can enter several products in the Best Of competition!

The first product is free and all additional products will be charged at £50 excl. VAT/product (up to a maximum of 4 products per exhibitor).

Key dates: 

• Registration opens: February 2026
• Pre-selection of registered products for tasting: 4 May 2026
• Registration closes: 11 May 2026
• Receipt of 5 samples per product: no later than 13 May 2026
• Final judging: 19 May 2026
• Award ceremony: 7 June 2026

Applications for the 2026 competition are closed.

To maximise your chances of being included in the final selection, it is essential that you register and send your products by a date to be announced at a later stage.

For products registered at a later stage, pre-selection will still be possible but will be based solely on the application form and product description.

At the end of the competition, winners will receive a media kit with various logos that they can use on their communication materials and product packaging to highlight their award throughout the marketing process.

 

The jury's criteria for selecting products 

The jury's choices are based on five main criteria, which are rated according to their importance to reach a total of /100:

 

Taste & Quality: /40

While highly subjective, the taste criteria is the first judging criteria. To be as objective as possible, the Best Of judging panel accompanying the chairman is made up of sector professionals hailing from a wide range of backgrounds, chosen by the panel chairman and the exhibition’s management team. The collegial nature of tastings is a guarantee of independence and honest choices among the products registered.

Innovation: /20

With a constantly evolving market, fierce competition between producers, and pressing demand from the media, new products are another need in addition to quality. To assess this quality, the judges draw on the selections of previous years and the wide-ranging market knowledge of the judges, all of whom are capable of judging the impact on the public and, most importantly, whether the product is innovative or not.

Having said that, “Concentrate on making it taste good before making it different” remains the guiding principle to earn a place on the winners’ podium.

Singularity: /15

A product can stand out and earn visibility due to many factors that go towards making it unique or, in any case, different. This criterion differs from the previous one in that it is unnecessary to innovate to make a product singular. It must merely stand out from the crowd through a criterion or set of criteria that make it unique and easily identifiable at first sight.

Naturality: /15

A set of criteria touching on consumers’ desires to eat natural and healthy foodstuffs, both through the ingredients and raw materials used and in the choice of the packaging and its resulting environmental impact. All consumers are increasingly conscious of the need to have the lowest possible impact on the environment, and this translates into keener environmental awareness when purchasing their food.

Packaging: /10

Packaging is also important when considering a product as a whole. Beyond the protection of the product itself against heat, cold, humidity, etc., the choice of packaging must also be consistent with the positioning and commitments of the brand. If this criterion is not a determining factor, it is important and should not be neglected!