Highland chain Harry Gow has become the first Scottish bakery to win a coveted national title for a second time. The Inverness-based business scooped the top accolade – baker of the year – at the Scottish Baker of the Year Awards in Glasgow on Saturday night. It previously won the accolade at the climax to the inaugural competition in 2012.
Celebrating the latest success, managing director David Gow said: “We are delighted, absolutely delighted. We work hard every day to create products that our customers think are worthy of a vote in this competition. Year after year, we take home prizes for the quality of our products, but this title reflects on us as a business, so we are beyond pleased to be taking the title back to Inverness one more time.”
The bakery was also named retail craft baker of the year and won a string of national and regional silver and bronze awards. Its birthday cake slice and chicken curry pie won national honours for best individual cake and best savoury, respectively. The awards were decided by the votes of more than 8,000 bakery customers across Scotland and a rigorous day of blind judging by 50 top professionals.
Head judge Robert Ross said: “Harry Gow Bakery can be very proud to take home the top prize in such a competitive field of brilliant products.” Alasdair Smith of Scottish Bakers, which organises the annual competition, said: “To excel in so many of the categories and then to present a compelling business case to the final judges is remarkable.”
