The PAPA Awards & Judging 2020

19th November 2020

In a year not experiencing a pandemic, the PAPA awards would have meant a visit to the European Pizza and Pasta Show then a remarkable dinner and awards ceremony. With virtual judging, virtual award presenting and the brief presentation only to previous winners or short listed entrants, like many other things we know and love, the PAPA Awards have been different this year.

At Futura we like to work closely with the Pizza and Pasta Association and yearly we sponsor awards for the PAPA’s. For 2020, the third year running, we have sponsored The Pizza Delivery Chain of the Year award and for this year we sponsored the Pizzaiola of the Year Challenge, using FuturaPro Grated Mozzarella. A smooth and creamy mozzarella, grated at Futura Foods Wales. We selected this Mozzarella for its versatility, easy melting and beautifully balanced taste and therefore knew it would complement many recipes the entrants could produce.

Four of our Dairy Experts took part in the virtual judging process, Jo, our Product Development Controller, Mark, our Sales Director for Food Manufacturing, Simon, our Commercial Controller for Futura Foods Wales and Thomas, our New Product Development Coordinator for Futura Foods Wales. Usually they would meet with the other judges to taste the entrant’s pizzas and best decide their winners that way. The difference this year was that the recipes and images of the finished product were sent to each judge, 23 were received in total (that’s a lot of pizza!). The judges for Futura Foods discussed all entries and shortlisted them to 9.

On the 11^th November Jo and Mark joined the other judges Enzo Oliveri (Chef), Michele Pascarella (Chef), Michael Eyre (Culinary Director, Jestic Foodservice Equipment) and Theo Randall (Chef), virtually. The shortlisted entrants then presented their products, the judges could ask questions about choice of recipe, ingredients and method to create the recipe.

The judges scored the entrants separately and when the entrants then left the virtual chat there was an open discussion between all the judges. The discussion ended in a unanimous decisions about who should win.

The winners were the announced on Tuesday 17^th November. We would like to congratulate our winners and all the entrants for putting in so much effort into this year’s awards!