Every year, the Good Food Awards committee combs through thousands of brands nationwide to find products that are "tasty, authentic, and responsible." This year, six upstate businesses beat over 2,000 entries across 17 categories to make the list of 2021 Good Food Award winners. From chocolate to hot sauce, syrups to pickles, our Catskills and Hudson Valley food producers are making standout, ethical, and environmentally food products. Hats off to the newly minted winners.
ImmuneSchein Ginger Elixirs
Winner: Black Currant Ginger Elixir and Ceylon Cinnamon Ginger ElixirFor the third year in a row, ImmuneSchein has made the list of Good Food winners, this time snagging two awards. The West Hurley-based company eschews chemicals, alcohols, fillers, and artificial flavors, instead opting for health-supportive whole-food ingredients like turmeric, lavender, organic lemon juice, and wildflower honey to cook up their small-batch immune-boosting ginger elixirs and candies. The award-winning Black Currant Ginger Elixir is made with concentrate from the Currant C Farm in Staatsburg. The Ceylon Cinnamon Ginger Elixir is a spicy tonic offering antibacterial and blood sugar-regulating qualities. Like all the ImmuneSchein elixirs, these two winners can be used in baking, marinating, cooking, salad dressings, cocktails, and mocktails.
Jacuterie
Winner: Saucisson Provençal
This artisanal charcuterie company is another repeat winner. The Columbia County brand specializes in European-style dry-cured salami, whole-muscle charcuterie, small-batch fresh sausage, and bacon. The pork is mixed with spices and herbs, and then slowly fermented and aged in custom drying chambers in their Ancramdale facility. The Saucisson Provencal––now a two-time Good Food Awards winner is part of Jacuterie’s Charcutier Reserve line, made with pork from Jacuterie’s own family farm. This local pork is blended in small batches with a proprietary Herbs de Provence mix, garlic, and black pepper. Jacuterie products can be found at several farmers markets in the Hudson Valley, as well as independent grocers throughout New York and New England.
Maya’s Syrups + Jams
Winner: Peaches + Organic Lavender SyrupMaya’s Syrups and Jams creates super premium handmade mixers and low-sugar jams made with quality, locally-sourced ingredients. The 2021 Best Food Awards winner feels like a hot summer day on the French Riviera. Made with fresh peaches, organic lavender sourced from southern France, and organic lemon, this zesty syrup has 80 percent less sugar and calories than a regular soda and is vegan, gluten-free, non-GMO, and 100-percent natural. Maya’s Syrups and Jams is dedicated to making guilt-free jams and syrups from fresh fruits grown in their own organic orchard and local farms in the Hudson Valley and Catskill Mountains.
Poor Devil Pepper Company
Winner: Gold ToothThis Hudson-based company is reaching new levels of sustainability while making delicious hot sauce. Their support for local growers who value regenerative agriculture is the key to their business. Poor Devil Pepper Co. makes lactofermented hot sauces with organically grown peppers and veggies to create complex, probiotic, umami-rich sauces that are tasty and good for gut health. This zero-waste business regularly collaborates with other fermenters, food industry folk, and mission-aligned friends. Their 2021 Good Food awards winner is a honey mustard hot sauce made with organic yellow cayenne peppers, organic mustard, organic honey, and sea salt for a full-bodied, medium-level spiciness with a sweet spin.
Atina Foods
Winner: Garlic Scape PickleAtina Foods offers healthy Ayurvedic products blended with global and local ingredients for delicious, health-supportive fermented and preserved condiments. Their small-batch, handmade recipes use whole ingredients, spices, roots, fruits, and herbs. Their product line consists of jarred foods like Lasoon Garlic Nut Crumble (a classic Bombay street food topping) condiments like turmeric ginger pickle, and curries like Thiyal coconut cooking paste.The 2021 Best Food Awards winner and fan favorite is a crunchy scape pickle created with all local New York scapes and their own mixture of immune-boosting spices. You can find tasty products from Atina Foods at Upstate food and craft fairs or farmers markets.
Primo Botanica
Winner: Mountain Cardamom Dark MylkPrimo Botanica, the Capital Region’s first craft chocolatier, sets a high standard for ethical chocolate, sourcing their Fair Trade raw cocoa beans from indigenous Latin American farmer cooperatives that value land stewardship and biodiversity. After roasting, the cocoa beans are ground with organic panela––cane sugar––from Columbia and turned into semi-finished liquor. The chocolate liquor is turned wonderfully smooth during the conching process. Finally, their vegan chocolate bars and treats are infused with nutritious herbs, mushrooms, and spices for flavors like Shadow Panther made with Mayan vanilla, or Sesame Lioness, made with tahini and lion’s mane mushroom. . The 2021 Good Food Awards winner Mountain Cardamom Dark Mylk is made with powdered coconut milk and sultry, citrusy, spicy taste of Honduran cardamom. Like all their chocolates it’s dairy-, soy-, and gluten-free.
