Australian Food Awards Producer Spotlight: Gelato Gelato
17 Oct 2024 / Food
On Thursday, 3 October, Melbourne Royal proudly announced the winners of the 2024 Australian Food Awards, showcasing the best producers and products across Australia. This year’s competition brought together an outstanding selection of entries, with each product blind tasted and judged on their own merits against a set of criteria by a panel of esteemed industry experts.
One of the standout winners was Gelato Gelato from regional Victoria, which took home the trophy for Champion Australian Small Dairy Producer as well as Best Gelato. Melbourne Royal had the chance to speak with Stephanie Lewis of Gelato Gelato, who shared what this achievement means for their business, the significance of the Melbourne Royal Australian Food Awards, and her favourite moments from the 2024 Trophy Presentation.
What does winning the Champion Gelato award mean for your business?
As a small business, our focus is on quality over profit. This means taking the time to find quality ingredients, as local as possible and knowing our suppliers. We also make 99% of our inclusions, meaning we REALLY know what goes into our product. We love what we produce but we need to benchmark ourselves, to know we are the best we can be. We travel, we taste, we compare and we are inspired. Inspired to stand by our principals and know what to continue doing and what not to do. We know where we think we stand in the industry but by entering the Melbourne Royal Australia Food Awards, we objectively know where we stand. The results help us analyse our processes and how to do better.
Winning Champion Gelato is thrilling and affirming. It is an absolute thrill to be recognised as the best in the country and affirming to know our philosophy on producing a quality product is the right one. But being located in regional Victoria has it’s challenges. Business is inherently seasonal and despite having an incredible product, we don’t have the volume of patronage all year round. Whilst quality is of utmost importance, we need to be viable to survive and thrive. We can also use the award as a platform to inform the public of our quality and increase visitation.
Pictured: Gelato Gelato award winning Banana Gelato
Why are the Melbourne Royal Australian Food Awards are so important for the industry?
Quite simply, the Melbourne Royal Food Awards are the benchmark for the industry. The Awards have a quality focus, they are impartial and they are meaningful. They are meaningful to the people that enter them and to the public that take note of the results.
What did you most enjoy at the 2024 Melbourne Royal Australian Food Awards Trophy Presentation?
Whilst we have attended and really enjoyed previous Melbourne Royal Food Awards ceremonies, we absolutely loved the format this year, whereby there was a real connection between the winners and their products. By having the platters on the table and announcing the winners in conjunction with what was served on the platters, really put in focus those producers. We could see, first hand, why they were Trophy winners. It has encouraged me to seek out the producers, see where I can buy their product and also share that with family and friends.
The flow from being seated, enjoying the platters and awards ceremony to tea/coffee and dessert (scones and ice cream cart) worked incredibly well. It was the conduit for getting people up and about and mingling! The whole ceremony was very well done.
We also loved meeting the Melbourne Royal staff, judges and producers. It was a great space to meet people but the time to mingle was all too brief!
To view the full list of winners, head to melbourneroyal.com.au/food