Three award wins for top Essex producer

Essex fruit grower D C Williamson Ltd and their Barn Farm Drinks fruit juice brand are celebrating after taking home three top prizes during a week of awards success.

Barn Farm Drinks won the award for Best Essex Producer at Essex Food & Drinks Awards and were also finalists in the Best Newcomer and Pride of Essex categories. The juice range also picked up the Sustainability and Environment award at the Tendring Blue Ribbon Awards 2019, while D C Williamson won the Sustainability Award at the Business Excellence Awards Essex.

It’s just the latest in a long line of awards success for the businesses – last month Barn Farm Drinks received three one-star Great Taste Awards for their farm-pressed fruit juices, and also received a shortlisting for the Future Food Awards and Great British Food Awards.

Commenting on their awards success, Craig Williamson, Managing Director of both D C Williamson and Barn Farm Drinks, said: “To win not one, not two but three awards in the space of a week is incredible – it’s a fantastic achievement for us. We started Barn Farm Drinks almost two years ago and to be named ‘Best Essex Producer’ after such a short space of time is a real honour. We’ve recently added an orange juice to our range and the brand is going from strength-to-strength.

“We also work hard to make sure everything we do is environmentally kind and we have lots of initiatives on the farm to help us achieve this; we harvest and reuse rainwater and we have an on-site solar farm which generates power for 1,400 local homes. We really do try to make a difference and we’re so proud that our efforts have been recognised.”

D C Williamson specialises in soft fruit, stem fruit and bush fruit farming, providing both fresh and frozen fruit to retailers. In November 2017 Craig, along with his wife Gail, launched Barn Farm Drinks, a range of six cloudy and clear, farm-pressed fruit juices. Their fruit juices and fruits are available in independent retailers and farm shops across Essex, Norfolk and Suffolk, as well as in East of England Co-op and Chelmsford Star Co-op stores.

The Essex Food & Drink Awards and Business Excellence Awards Essex ceremonies took place on Thursday, 26 September and the Tendring Blue Ribbon Awards took place on Wednesday 3 October.

For more information visit the websites of Barn Farm Drinks or D C Williamson