Bold colours and cheeky fun capture the mood of the moment at the Free From Food Awards 2025

At the glamorous Free From Food Awards in central London on Fri 20th June, the wonderful free from community came together to celebrate the best in free from.

The Free From Food Awards, the UK's only industry awards for ‘free from’ food and drink, were launched in 2008 to encourage innovation and celebrate excellence in the free from food and drink industry.

Unashamed fun is the mood of the moment, with Superkeen’s Original tiger nut cereal, Juvela’s newest brand OAF and CRAVE’s cheezy shuffles bringing colour, sass and joy to the sector.

But light bites were clearly what the judges were looking for, with Voakes Free From’s Traditional Scotch Egg winning Free From Food Product of the Year, and M&S Made Without Korean Style Chicken Sandwich scoping Retailer Product of the Year: “packs a real flavour punch, the textural contrasts are great with the crunchy slaw and cucumber and the chicken is succulent and flavoursome.”

One of the most successful entrants in the Free From Food Awards ever, Booja-Booja, who have been delighting judges with their entries since 2010, were crowned Large Brand of the Year with medals for chocolate truffles, ice cream, and their more recent innovations Truffle Loglets and Chocolate Wonders.

And over in the Drink Awards corner, the first gluten-free nitro porter to go into a widget can won the Free From Drink Product of The Year. Campervan Brewery’s Extra Black combines “very good flavour of deep roasts, coffee and chocolate. Refreshing, smooth, beautifully executed and unusual to get a gluten free porter which makes a very happy change”.

Tesco won Retailer of the Year, the most prestigious accolade for the supermarkets sponsored by logistics experts Oakland International for their products within Free From and across many of their main category ranges too. “It’s wonderful to see frozen back on the agenda, a greater front of store offer and their new range of finest* free from pasta.”

“Every year we see the same commitment from the industry to making safer, healthier and more delicious products for the food hypersensitive consumer, and 2025 is no exception” said Awards’ CEO, Cressida Langlands.

“But the sector now needs a champion, so let’s get behind the Allergy Tsar campaign, to ensure a better understanding of allergies and uniform approaches to manufacturing. Government grants could be given for allergen testing solutions such as those offered by Romer Labs and SGS.”

Tanya Ednan Laperouse of the Natasha Allergy Research Foundation introduced the 2025 Free From Hero, Kitt Medical’s ‘it’s a defibrillator, but for allergies’: a wall-mounted anaphylaxis kit stocked with adrenaline pens and an accompanying platform that monitors expiry dates, triggers replacements and provides a CPD-accredited training course. It already operates in hundreds of locations across the country, and as of 18th June this year has saved 16 lives.”

All medallists and Special Awards winners can be found on the Free From Food Awards website.