Ireland’s premier artisan food producers have been honoured by leading chefs at the 2025 Euro-Toques food awards. Winners across a range of categories included: Dingle Sea Salt, Coole Farm, Moy Hill Farm, Salt Rock Dairy and Ballylisk.
The awards ceremony, held on Monday afternoon at Ashford Castle, recognised products nominated by chefs who use them in their restaurants and voted for by members of the Euro-Toques Ireland Food Council. More than 100 chefs, producers and Euro-Toques members gathered for a celebratory lunch featuring a harvest table of more than 30 Irish producers, including this year’s winners and nominees.
The annual awards, now in their 39th year were first established in 1996 by the late Myrtle Allen of Ballymaloe House in Co Cork.
This year’s theme, honouring Ireland’s kitchen table, paid tribute to the place where food meets tradition, memory and storytelling and honoured seven champions, all makers of key cookery ingredients.
The Euro-Toques Ireland Food Council is a European community of chefs and cooks that champion local food integrity, craftsmanship and community-led gastronomy. The 2025 awards celebrated seven winners chosen across the categories of Water, Land, Farm, Dairy, Artisan Produce and Craft/Traditional Skills.
The 2025 Awards winners
Water
Dingle Sea Salt for its innovative and sustainable solar-evaporated, Atlantic-harvested sea salt that uses a fully off-grid, low-carbon process.
Land
Coole Farm for its cultivation of organic salad leaves using a regenerative approach that restores soil health and supports biodiversity.
Farm
Moy Hill Farm for its ethical, regenerative egg production, its education programmes, community-supported agricultural boxes and on-farm transparency.
Dairy (cultured butter)
Salt Rock Dairy for handcrafted cultured butter using milk from its own herd and Wexford sea salt, a method that revives traditional butter-making.
Dairy (soft cheese)
Ballylisk for The Triple Rose, a rich triple cream cheese, a luxurious product with depth and distinction, made from a single pedigree herd in Armagh.
Artisan produce
Wild Irish Foragers for helping to preserve Ireland’s edible heritage, keeping forgotten flavours alive with its handcrafted syrups, shrubs and jellies made from foraged botanicals.
Traditional craft/skill
Seagull Bakery for the championing of bread made from Irish-grown grains and bold fermentation, reimagining traditional baking with creativity and skill.
Lunch at the Ashford Castle event was prepared by chefs Liam Finnegan and Jonathan Keane, whose menus served local ingredients.
Conor Halpenny of Square Dundalk and chair of Euro-Toques Ireland, said: “We are honouring those who have kept Irish food grounded – producers and craftspeople who quietly shape our national identity through their work every single day.
“The Irish kitchen table is a symbol of trust, care and resilience,” said Aishling Moore of Goldie in Cork, head of the Euro-Toques Food Council. “It is where we learn the fundamentals of food – not just how to cook, but how to value what we eat and who we share it with.”
Each award category considered a fundamental element of the Irish food story, from ocean-harvested salt and nutrient-rich seaweeds to soil-nurturing salad leaves, pasture-raised eggs, and hand-churned butter.
