General News
17 May, 2025
On top of the world
International judges give bacon perfect score FROM the family butcher shop in Boort’s Godfrey Street, Jye and Kristy Arnold have scaled the pinnacle of international smallgoods competition. Their hickory and peppercorn bacon brought home the title...
International judges give bacon perfect score
FROM the family butcher shop in Boort’s Godfrey Street, Jye and Kristy Arnold have scaled the pinnacle of international smallgoods competition.
Their hickory and peppercorn bacon brought home the title of platinum grand champion at IFFA 2025 in Frankfurt, Germany, last week.
An eight-member judging panel awarded the bacon the perfect 50/50 score.
The bacon had earned Jye and Kristy a spot in the international competition after a perfect score in last year’s Australian Chacuterie Awards.
Jye said the judging panel travelled to Melbourne in February where they assessed a 500g piece of the bacon and 500g of sliced bacon.
“Then about four weeks ago, we had a phone saying it was highly recommended we attended the award presentations in Frankfurt,” said Kristy.
“They didn’t say we had won any awards ... just we should really be there.”
Jye and Kristy had two entries in the international competition that Jye says is the “pinnacle of smallgoods in the world”.
“We are a butchers and we were up against some of the big companies with very large operations,” he said.
“Our bacon has won awards for the last three years - more than 20 judges in all of the competitions have now agreed that it’s the best.”
“There were 19 platinum awards and we won two.”
Arnold Family Butchers received a bronze medal for its boneless ham.
Kristy said: “We took the family - Zac, Acacia and Brodie - they were there when we were announced as platinum winners.
“To have them there was so wonderful and would not have been possible if it wasn’t for my mum and dad (Mark & Marianne Simmonds) and Mitch Edwards. They made sure the supermarket had meat while we weren’t here,” Kristy said.
Arnold Family Butchers has won a slew of awards for bacon, hams, sausages and other smallgoods. “We’ve reached the pinnacle of competition in Australia and internatonally, we might take a break for a while,” said Jye.