The Foodies NZ Food Media Award Winners for 2019 

Food Writing

Best Book
Annabel and Rose Langbein – A Free Range Life: Together

Our judges thought this was a clever way of extending the Langbein brand to younger/new cooks. The recipes are appealing, modern and aspirational. A terrific concept with outstanding art design, great tips and notes on sustainability, event planning and menus.

Highly commended books:

Ashia Ismail-Singer – My Indian Kitchen: To quote one of our judges, “If we had an award for most exciting newcomer, this would be it.” Simple, accessible recipes beautifully intertwining two cultures with a lovely personal story.

Nicola Galloway – Homegrown Kitchen: A comprehensive and thoroughly researched book – an original concept and a great reference tool. This writer knows her audience and the content is well integrated with her website.  

Emma Galloway – A Year in my Real Food Kitchen: What an engaging and immersive book. Deep and interesting flavour combinations to push and inspire people to create plant-based meals.  An excellent resource for vegan, vegetarian and gluten free cooks, with great notes on ingredients and seasonality.  

Annabel Langbein ESSENTIAL: Volume One and Two: An epic production, with gorgeous art direction.  A lovely mix of good, well-tested recipes, clever organisation and lots of bonus tips.   

Chelsea Winter | EAT: There is no doubt Chelsea has had outstanding commercial success. Eat provides great baking and good straightforward recipes which push home cooks a little further – a quality cookbook that clearly connects with her audience and is leveraged well on social media.

Tui Flower Awards:
Best Recipe Writing – Editorial 
Winner – Emma Galloway
Refreshingly modern, informative and inspiring recipes by an experienced cook who clearly understands her craft and her audience.

Highly Commended – Lucy Corry & Ginny Grant

Best Recipe Writing – Commercial
Winner – Sophie Gray: Recipes were exciting, approachable, original and appetising. The food writer knows her audience, producing work that fits the client’s brief and had good commercial success.

Food Journalism

Best Feature Writing
Joint Winners – Niki Bezzant + Alice Neville
Niki – Highly researched, Niki’s feature writing is succinct, hugely topical and informative in an approachable way.
Alice – Clever, engaging, well-informed and confident, Alice’s writing is strongly crafted for its audience.

Best Opinion Writing 
Winner – Lucy Corry
Fun, honest and original writing, with clear commercial success spawning other publication to take notice. She tells relevant personal stories in a conversational style, with well-balanced sentences.
Food Communication

Best Food Blog/Website
Winner – Nicola Galloway 
A gifted communicator and teacher sharing credible, engaging content and imagery clearly loved by its audience. Quality of writing and photography both evident in the broad digital space.

Highly Commended – Emma Galloway
Authentic and appealing voice, consistently on brand with both content and style across all platforms. Beautiful imagery brings the website to life.

Best Food Broadcast 
Winner – Alice Neville – Dietary Requirements

The Spinoff Podcast. Co-hosted by Simon Day and Sophie Gilmour: A well-established niche podcast that does an excellent job of showcasing various food themes. Content is consistent and clearly engages with fans.

Best Social Media  
Winner – Christall Lowe @christall.lowe
Simply superb storytelling and gorgeous images that project a consistent identifiable style. The relaxed tone of content feels accessible and there is incredible engagement for size of audience.

Visual Awards

Best Food Styling – Editorial
Winner – Fiona Hugues
Appealing, well executed and trademark vintage style. Styling that strongly fits the brief using great angles and an exceptional amount of effort evident.

Best Food Styling – Commercial 
Winner – Jo Bridgford
Absolutely stunning food styling, with ice cream being one of the most difficult products to work with. Beautifully presented, appealing images show the consistency required for constraints of packaging and all created from a minimal brief.
Best Food Photography – Editorial 
Winner – Manja Wachsmuth
Beautiful stand out images, great balance and moodiness showcasing a highly technical skillset. Simplicity in propping matches subject and allows hero to pop.
Best Food Photography – Commercial
Winner – Manja Wachsmuth
Soft, intimate and elegant shots that tell a story with a strong sense of theme. High level of skill required to ensure well-balanced composition and lighting. Appropriate to target market and beautiful focal point in each image.

Special Awards

Emerging Food Communicator 2019
Kate Underwood 

This award goes to someone who has been practicing as a food communicator for less than five years. By sharing food memories, rather than recipes they set themself apart from other food communicators. Their warm personality and high energy is infectious. Evocative storytelling about food culture is consistently engaging, whether it’s a podcast, on social media or in the written form – they know how to take their audience on a journey, and keep them coming back for more. Whether it’s feeding their social feed, discovering cheap eats for Metro magazine, contributing to Stone Soup, Nourish Magazine and Honeycomb podcast or immersing themself in Eat New Zealand. 

Food Communicator of the Year 2019
Lucy Corry 

She communicates in an engaging conversational style. Whether they are writing articles about amazing food producers for magazines, sharing recipes in the press or talking about their personal food adventures on social media they know how to really connect with their audiences.  Their unique style is littered with relevant personal stories; the content is always well balanced and easy to read with wit which often continues through into the recipes themselves. What we loved was that you can really hear their voice and as one judge put it, “Fun, honest and original writing”. Whether it’s updating their social, writing and sub-editing for NZ Life and Leisure, contributing to Stuff and Eat Well (Bite) or beating the locals to win an aioli making competition in the south of France. 

President’s Award – Contribution to the Wider Food Community: 
Vicki Ravlich-Horan

Not only does Vicki run her own magazine and website championing the Waikato and Bay of Plenty regions, she teaches classes and workshops, has for many years (until recently) been the Chair of Waikato Food Inc and is incredibly driven to put Waikato food front and centre in the minds of New Zealanders and tourists alike.

President’s Award – Expert in Food & Health Communication: 
Niki Bezzant
 
Niki is a consummate professional in the world of food and health communication, widely respected as an expert in her field across a host of top New Zealand printed publications, she is often called upon for various public speaking engagements. Tackling the often challenging and topical scope of health, her communication is well researched and provides practical and clear information.  She writes tightly, informs and engages her audience so as not to confuse or overwhelm them with facts. 

Congratulations to all 2019 winner.

Brought to you by Food Writers New Zealand and Meadow Mushrooms.