Chocolate maker wins Scottish food award

Chocolate maker and café, Cocoa Mountain has been announced as the first ever winner of VisitScotland’s Food Tourism Award. Based in Durness on the north coast of Scotland, the business received the award at an evening ceremony at Glasgow’s Kelvingrove Museum on 7th May.

Judges for the awards short listed four finalists and the final result was based on voting by viewers of STV’s 5.30 Show on VisitScotland’s food and drink website, weatscotland.com. Praised by the judges for its year-round commitment to visitor services, ongoing work with the local community and passion for their product, Cocoa Mountain was the clear winner from the thousands of votes cast.

Owner, Paul Maden, said:

“It's wonderful and rewarding to be recognised by the viewers for all the hard work and commitment our team at Cocoa Mountain have put in to providing a top quality foodie visitor attraction. The passion, commitment and dedication of everyone has resulted in a first-class experience that goes above and beyond visitor expectations and we aim to continually improve and develop our offering. We’re delighted to win this award and are now looking forward to welcoming more visitors to Cocoa Mountain in Durness this summer. We would also like to thank VisitScotland for giving us this opportunity to showcase our business to STV viewers.”

Representing the diversity of applications for the award, the three other finalists were Cream o’ Galloway (ice cream makers) from Scotland’s south west, Monachyle Mhor (hotel, open farm, bakery and cookery school) from the Trossachs and Craigie’s (farm shop) from West Lothian. Shortbread producers, Dean’s of Huntly and Inverawe Smokehouse from Argyll were highly commended.

To enter, businesses needed to be a quality Scottish food or drink producer with authenticity, quality and passion at the centre of their product, as well as emphasising their visitor’s experience. In selecting the four short-listed finalists, the judges were delighted to see the range of food and drink visitor experiences across the length and breadth of Scotland and were impressed with the level of sophistication and excellence in food and drink provision and visitor experience, particularly across rural Scotland.

Presenting the award, VisitScotland’s Chief Executive, Phillip Riddle, said:

“Food and drink is integral to the experience of visitors to Scotland and these awards have been a wonderful opportunity to build on our EatScotland quality assurance scheme for restaurants and highlight some of Scotland’s food heroes. It’s been great to see so many quality food and drink producers welcoming visitors in such enthusiastic and imaginative ways.”

To find out more about the awards, visit eatscotland.com.