File photo / David Clough
Kate McAleer, founder of Bixby Chocolate in Rockland, was honored by SCORE Maine.
Updated: January 18, 2022
Four Maine companies win national 2022 Good Food Awards
Photo / Elle Darcy Photography
Vanilla Creme Brûlée, made by Bixby Chocolate in Rockland, is a 2022 Good Food Award winner.
Four Maine producers of delicacies from white chocolate with a French twist to nutrient-rich kelp are winners of 2022 national Good Food Awards, the San Francisco-based Good Food Foundation announced on Jan. 14.
This year's 244 winners, chosen in a blind tasting from thousands of entries before passing a further sustainability and social responsibility vetting process, hail from 39 states and Washington, D.C., according to the announcement. Winners will be feted in a virtual ceremony scheduled for March 4.
Maine honorees include Atlantic Sea Farms, for its Ready-Cut Kelp product; Rockland-based Bixby Chocolate for Vanilla Creme Brûlée; Maine Beer Co., of Freeport, for its Wolfe's Neck IPA; and Josh Pond, a Whiting-based family-owned producer of blueberries, cheeses, jams and jellies, for its Strawberry Preserves.
Nearly half of this year's winners are first-time honorees, while 56% are woman-owned businesses and one in six are BIPOC-owned businesses.
Across 18 categories, each recognized crafter demonstrated exceptional taste and a deep commitment to building a more sustainable, just food system, according to the contest organizer.
Now in its 12th year, awards were given for beer, charcuterie, cheese, chocolate, cider, coffee, confections, drinks, elixirs, fish, grains, honey, oils (announced last spring), pantry items, pickles, preserves, snacks and spirits.
"We are so excited to be recognized nationally and as one of the only woman-owned bean-to-bar chocolate makers in the USA," Bixby Chocolate founder Kate McAleer told Mainebiz over the weekend.
“Our team is incredibly innovative, and we are so proud of the Crème Brûlée Bar, which was our first foray into making white chocolate — with a twist, of course."
The company, formerly known as Bixby & Co., now goes by Bixby Chocolate to be "more understandable," she noted.
Asked about the inspiration for the winning product, she said she lived in France her junior hear of high school, "and the Crème Brûlée Bar reminds of France." Last year, McAleer won the Season 6 of the "Greenlight Maine" television business-pitch competition. Her company currently employs 15 people in total.
File Photo / Tim Greenway
Briana Warner, CEO of Atlantic Sea Farms and a winner of a Governor's Awards for Business Excellence.
For Atlantic Sea Farms of Biddeford, 2022 marked the third year in a row of Good Food Awards honors.
"We are so proud to be in such incredible company and to be honored by the Good Food Foundation," said Briana Warner, the company's CEO, a 2020 Mainebiz Next List honoree. Warner, who recently raised $4.7 million for a new 27,000-square-foot facility in Biddeford, said the company is now operating from that facility.
Meanwhile in Freeport, Wolfe's Neck IPA, which is sold on tap and in bottles at Maine Beer Co.'s tasting room, is described by the company on its website as containing aromas of pineapple, mango, guava and orange with notes of onion and garlic.
The company tweeted over the weekend that the product features Maine Malt House malts and celebrates the work of the nonprofit Wolfe's Neck Center, a Maine Beer Co. partner in the 1% for the Planet initiative. Though it, the brewer donates 1% of gross annual sales to environmental nonprofits.
"Our mission as a company has always been to 'Do what's right' from making good beer, to taking care of our team, community, and the environment," Anne Marisic, head of marketing and communications at Maine Beer Co., told Mainebiz.
Courtesy / Maine Beer Co.
The winning beer from Maine Beer Co., a craft brewer based in Freeport.
"The Good Food Awards recognize all of those priorities by celebrating craftsmanship while honoring social and environmental responsibility, and we are once again honored to be recognized."
Find the full list of 2022 winners, click here.
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