Cultura Live Food Kimchi Classic Wins Great Taste Award 2026

Cultura Live Food Kimchi Classic Wins Great Taste Award — Handmade in Cornwall, Judged by the Best!

The Short Version

Our Kimchi Classic has been awarded a Great Taste Award by the Guild of Fine Food. Blind-judged by over 500 food writers, chefs, buyers, and culinary experts from across the UK. It is one of the most respected food awards in Britain, and we are extraordinarily proud! This was our first time entering and the judges' feedback has already begun shaping how we approach every product we make, not just the kimchi that won.

What Are the Great Taste Awards?

The Great Taste Awards are run by the Guild of Fine Food and are widely regarded as the most trusted accreditation in UK food and drink. Unlike design or marketing awards, Great Taste is judged entirely on taste. Submissions are assessed blind, meaning the judges never see the packaging, the brand, or the story behind the product. Only the food matters.

Each year, tens of thousands of products are submitted from producers across the UK and beyond. Fewer than a third receive an award. A Great Taste star is a genuine signal that independent experts believe your product is outstanding. For a small-batch fermented food maker based in West Cornwall, earning that recognition feels significant.

What Makes Our Kimchi Different

Our Kimchi is made with Chinese leaf, mooli, carrot, spring onion, ginger, garlic, coconut nectar, red pepper powder, and Cornish sea salt. It is lacto-fermented slowly, unpasteurised, and raw. Meaning the live cultures are still active when it reaches your kitchen. No heat treatment, no additives, no shortcuts.

Paul Learney — chef of nearly thirty years and the person who started Cultura after a back injury forced him out of professional kitchens — created the kimchi recipe to do what great fermented food should do, make everything it touches taste better. A spoonful into ramen. Layered into a cheese toastie. Stirred through egg-fried rice. The spicy, umami punch of proper kimchi, made by hand in small batches.

The live cultures in our kimchi are a natural by-product of lacto-fermentation. The same ancient process that has been used to preserve and transform vegetables for thousands of years. Your gut recognises them as fuel. That is a good thing. But we made this kimchi because it tastes extraordinary, and the gut health benefits are simply what happens when food is made properly.

Thank You to the People Who Made This Possible

A Great Taste Award does not happen in isolation. Our Kimchi is only as good as the vegetables that go into it, and those vegetables come predominantly from Cornish growers and market gardeners who share our obsession with quality. The freshness of locally grown produce — harvested close to when we need it, from soil that is cared for — is what gives our kimchi its character. We are genuinely grateful to every grower who has supplied us.

We also owe enormous thanks to our retailers. All of the farm shops, delis, health food stores, and independent food businesses across Cornwall and beyond who believed in small-batch fermented food and gave us a place on their shelves. They took a chance on us when we were just starting out, and we will not forget it!

And to our customers: this award is yours. Every pack purchased, every recipe tried, every time you recommended us to someone, that is what sustains a small food business through the years of early mornings and long fermentation cycles. You are the reason we keep doing this. Thank you!

What This Means for Cultura Live Food

We have always made food that we believe in completely. Cultured, Never Compromised is not a tagline for us. It is the standard we hold ourselves to in every batch. Winning a Great Taste Award on our very first entry is confirmation from some of the most respected palates in the UK that the standard is real.

But perhaps the most valuable thing to come out of this process has not been the award itself, it has been the feedback. The Great Taste judging panel provides detailed notes on every product assessed, and what we received for our Kimchi has given us insights that go well beyond the recognition. We are already applying those learnings to our Sauerkraut and our Sauerbeet. Looking at how we can refine, improve, and push each product further. We will be entering next year, and we intend to come back stronger across the board!

It also matters because it represents something bigger than one product. It is recognition of West Cornwall as a place where genuinely exceptional food is made. It is a nod to the farmers, the makers, and the independent food culture that this part of the world quietly produces. We are proud to be part of that.

Try the Award-Winning Kimchi Classic

Our Kimchi Classic is available to order directly from culturafood.co.uk, and from selected retailers across Cornwall, the South West and London. If you have already made it part of your kitchen, you know why it won. If you have not tried it yet, now is a very good time to start. And as a little incentive, use discount code GREATTASTE20 to receive 20% across our entire range!

Cultured, Never Compromised.

Stay Zingy! Paul and the Cultura Live Food team x