Chesterfield Champion celebrates national innovation award
Chesterfield Champion Global Brands win national award as their Crooked Beverage Co offer is presented with gold award at Casual Dining Show.
The first alcoholic sodas in the UK, Crooked Beverage Co has been presented with a gold award at the Casual Dining Show 2018 for excellent innovation and overall product. The three-strong range has revolutionised the concept of the alcopop as they shake up the RTD category with their second gold award so far this year.
The competition, which comprised of two stages, took place across both days of the Casual Dining Show on the 21-22nd February at the Business Design Centre in London. 50 entrants were initially being judged, with event attendees casting their favourite vote throughout the day. Following these results, 13 products were submitted for a further round to determine the winners.
The second stage of the competition included a 90 second pitch in front of a panel of 7 judges including Simon Xavier, executive chef from The Restaurant Group, Megan Lewis-Thomas Head of Food Development and Marketing at Casual Dining Group and Glenn Evans, Head of Food Development at Las Iguanas, La Tasca & La Vina.
The awards were announced later that afternoon with Crooked being amongst the 5 brands to receive gold out of the 13 finalists. Final comments from the panel included :-
“Judges were impressed with the low sugar, better for you, “no baddies” nature of the product. They went as far as to say they are making Alcopops cool”.
Charlie Leaver, innovation manager from Global Brands, said:-
“We are so glad that our truly innovative product has been recognised as thus. A great deal of strong work and consumer led insight has gone into the development of this product and we are delighted for the judges to not only recognise this but to also call us out for making alcopops cool again”
“There are so many features of Crooked that we are proud of, from our Vegan registration, to the awesome artwork by Lisa O’Hara to of course the fantastic, unique liquid. For a well-respected institution such as the Casual Dining Show to recognise us as such is a real honour.”
The brand earlier this year also won a gold in the Drinks International Pre-Mixed Drinks Challenge 2018 for design and packaging as the cans continue to take the market by storm.
