Ludlow Food Festival - in pictures

A host of tasty winners were honoured in competitions to celebrate the best food and drink from Shropshire.

Ludlow Food Festival offered awards and prizes to people of all abilities after judging took place during yesterday's opening day. Bumper crowds watched demonstrations, including many featuring Michelin-starred chefs which were organised by the town's celebrity cook Will Holland, a regular on BBC TV.

There were also winners in a competition to find the region's best young chef, in a contest backed by Mr Holland, former Ludlow cook Claude Bosi and the town's long-serving Michelin Star-holder Chris Bradley.

Jo Gadsby, spokeswoman for the festival, said a number of winners were announced in the event's Best of the Marches Competition. A record number of entries were submitted and competition was fierce for gold and silver awards in bread, cakes, pork pies, jams, cordials, fruit tarts and sandwiches.

She said: "The Ludlow Food Centre and SC Price & Sons stole the show in terms of bread, winning gold and silver between them in every category. Reg May picked up best pork pie, with Sam Duncan, from the Village Butcher and Farm Shop, taking silver."

Mrs Gadsby added that Towers of Baker Street, Ludlow, presented a gold standard Victoria sponge and fruit tart as well as a silver-winning strawberry jam. The gold and silver winner of the fruit cake category was The Simply Delicious Cake Company.

Best Sandwich went to The Church Inn for its homemade fish finger sandwich and the Dali Tea Rooms took silver.

Winners of the gold certificate for their cordial was Pixley Berries while Gold winning strawberry jam went to the Ludlow Food Centre which also won silver in the fruit tart category. Entrants in the home produced categories will find out if they have won at 2.30pm tomorrow.

Councillor Martin Taylor-Smith was among the many voluntary workers and said: "The festival is great for the town."

The festival is described as being the biggest and best of its kind in the UK and was launched in 1995 to give local businesses a boost.

By Andy Richardson