The BBC Food & Farming Awards 2025 Launch

June 13, 2025·42 min·4 clips

Hugh Fernley-Whittingstall reveals why vegetables should dominate your plate, not meat.

The awards return for 2025. The programme starts with last year's winners, including North by Sudwest charcuterie, Bull House Brewery, Wasted Kitchen and Groundswell. Nominations are open, and listeners are asked to put forward people and projects worthy of the BBC Food and Farming Awards Chopping Board. The ceremony is heading west, which gives the episode room to settle into the West Country's food culture, especially cheese, cider and small-scale enterprise. Cheese gets a warm moment. A speaker remembers Marcus Ferguson, who took a cheesemaking course, got hooked on the craft, and later built his own cheese business. From there, the conversation widens. The West Country is treated as more than cheese and cider, with good work happening across farming, food and drink. The landscape matters. The guest links the region's hills and valleys to a long history of small farms. Consolidation has changed that, but some farms have stayed alive by doing more with what they produce instead of being folded into bigger dairy businesses. Milk becomes cheese. Produce becomes something distinctive enough to sell locally, and sometimes farther afield. The point is practical, not glossy. Food entrepreneurship comes across as one way families hold on to farms. The invitation is still national. Nominations are wanted from across the UK, the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man, in categories including producers, drinks, street food, digital creators, farming futures, innovation and young countryside champions.

As heard by us

A warm awards launch that turns West Country food culture into a case for noticing local producers.

The Food Programme opens the 2025 BBC Food and Farming Awards with a call for nominations and a visit to River Cottage, where Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall returns as head judge.

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Why you'd press play

If you care who gets crowned for food and farming work, this one opens the 2025 search.

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