News

Judged by the Guild of Fine Food’s professional panel, five of Sky Park Farm Shop’s products have been granted Great Taste Award stars in the 2024 competition.  For a second consecutive year, the Butchery Counter’s produce has excelled with two stars awarded for their Honey Roast Ham and Sky Park Farm’s Smoked Venison Loin Fillet.  A further three items – Sky Park’s Venison Biltong, Sky Park’s Venison Sausage and Hot Smoked Trout all received one star in the world’s most trusted food and drink accreditation scheme.

The latest awards further confirm Sky Park Farm Shop, Bar & Grill and Deer Park’s position as a leading culinary destination, having been crowned the UK’s Best Small Farm Shop earlier in the year at the Farm Shop & Deli Awards. Based in Harting, West Sussex, the former dairy farm opened in October 2021, the innovative design and experiential shopping concept was the result of global travel inspiration and foresight of community minded owners, Pierce and Victoria Noonan.  Intended as a sustainable platform for local food producers to showcase their wares, the inhouse kitchen team also produce their own quality produce for the Farm Shop and meals for Sky Park’s Bar & Grill, at a destination where the local population are encouraged to meet and appreciate their natural surroundings.

Products entered for the awards were subjected to a rigorous blind tasting, judges tasting notes referencing Sky Park Farm’s award-winning honey roast ham included “a magnificent-looking ham, perfectly cured and cooked”, of the venison loin they commented “The dense, lean meat is packed with flavour and makes for a deeply impressive product that was a highlight of the judges’ day,” whilst Sky Park’s popular venison biltong received high praise, “This is an expertly made venison biltong that has been perfectly dried and sliced to deliver a non-greasy, yet tender, almost melt-in-your-mouth texture.”

Strict farming standards are adhered to at Sky Park Farm, where a variety of species of deer are raised.  Parkland is stocked with red, white red, sika and fallow.  This lifestyle ensures low stress and high welfare standards for the deer, in turn providing sustainable, zero-miles, quality lean meat for customers.

Working in conjunction with one another are Retail Manager, Gaynor Oakes and Executive Chef, Sean Williams, ensuring the Farm Shop is stocked with seasonal, quality produce.  The increased range of products made in the Sky Park kitchen has been well received by customers and the latest awards take the homemade award-winning produce total to nine, including four varieties of bacon, each of which received two Great Taste stars in 2023.  The popularity of the Butcher’s Counter makes Sky Park Farm’s latest collaborative concept – the introduction of a woodfired grill – natural progression.  Customers dining at the Bar & Grill are now able to choose a favourite cut or product from the Butcher’s Counter which is cooked over the woodfired grill and served with a choice of side dishes, making dining at Sky Park a truly flavoursome and bespoke experience.

When commending Sky Park’s venison biltong, it was noted, “The judges would love to see this as a more widely available bar snack.”  This is the norm when dining at Sky Park Bar & Grill on Friday and Saturday evenings, a destination leading the way with high-standards, venison farming, environmental choices and quality produce in the beautiful South Downs National Park.

Victoria Noonan, commented: “We are hugely proud of our team and all they have achieved this year.  They have made great achievements in very little time. Whilst we have created the infrastructure, the successes are down to the individuals, their experience, talent, hard work and decisions.  Great Taste Awards are acknowledged globally and considering the size of our business and team, this number of prestigious awards was beyond all our expectations.”

Recognised as a stamp of excellence and actively sought out by food lovers and retailers alike, Great Taste, organised by the Guild of Fine Food, values taste above all else. This year, judging took place over 92 days in Dorset and London, with a panel of more than 500 judges putting the products to the test. The line-up saw food and drink products submitted from an extraordinary 115 different countries across the world.