Autumn Harvest Food Culture 2020
The Autumn Harvest
For the next Gourmand World Cookbook Awards (2021)
The Autumn Harvest list is published on September 23. It includes the Spring Harvest list, published April 23 and the Summer Harvest list published July 23. There are now 983 entries, from 150 countries and regions. All will participate in the next Gourmand Awards, with the Best in the World announced June 1-6, 2021. All those on the Autumn Harvest list already have the right to the Winners certificates and stickers.
We have approximately 20% more entries this year than last year at the same time. The cookbook activity has been intense in the first eight months of 2020, a consequence of the pandemic and confinement. There is much digital publishing, but print is also increasing. There are significant changes worldwide, for instance see the Emirates Ministry of Climate Change cookbook in D01, or the Congo Cardinal of Kinshasa and the Minister of the Interior in forewords to a nutrition book against Covid-19 in A01 and F10. We created the new category A01 for Covid-19 cookbooks.
Take extreme care and keep safe, protect the others, and yourself. When back in Paris for the Gourmand Awards in June 2021 or before, you should visit the two restaurants I miss the most when away. They are among the top best in the world for my taste, from my years of international experiences, with reasonable prices for top quality real food. They are first, Le Carre des Feuillants, with Chef Alain Dutournier, and second, Le Belisaire, with chef Mathieu Garrel. Today restaurants do need all the help we can give them.
Best wishes
Edouard Cointreau
www.cookbookfair.com
Fall Ten Months Harvest - September 23
Total= 983 from 150 countries
Gourmand World Cookbook Awards 2019
Food Culture
Gourmand World Cookbook Awards 2019
Drink Culture
The Gourmand Awards are the major Food Culture event in the world.
They started in 1995 for cookbooks and wine books, at Frankfurt Book Fair. They now include all Food Culture content. The Gourmand Awards are open to all, big or small, print or digital, for sale or for free, with or without ISBN, trade or self published, private or public, in any language. It is free to participate, anyone can send entries. There is no comparable international cultural event in the world, except the Olympics. We are inspired by the Olympic spirit.
1- The countries
This year we had entries from 215 countries and regions. There are 193 countries in the United Nations. For the Finalists, we have considerably reduced from the entries the number of countries, and entries. There are now Finalists for Food from a total of 134 countries (116 UN members) and regions. There are 40 countries and regions for Drinks.
2- Categories
There are 100 categories for Food, 30 for Drinks. This is necessary to reflect the wide diversity of world food culture. It gives a chance to many countries to win in a category. In the Olympic games, they have 303 competitions/categories for 202 countries. On our list our finalists, we have 130 categories for 134 countries and regions. In total, there are 1372 entries now finalist, 1144 for food, and 228 for drinks. This represents less than 3% of the total of similar books and other formats published and available every year. It is a major achievement to be on this list of Finalists. There are 67% of the categories with 12 or less finalists, 26% with 13 to 19 finalists, and 7% with 20 to 30 finalists.
3- Trends
Food Culture is now taken very seriously by most governments and individuals. Food is at the heart of the issues of our future, collectively and individually.Trends in Food and Drinks culture are now global, everywhere in the world, which this list of finalists makes very clear. We see six major trends, combining or competing at a different pace in different countries, with change accelerating:
- Tourism is becoming the force driving food culture. Food is the first positive criteria and motivation generally, for 35%, up from 25% fifteen years ago. We have 160 entries for tourism (12%). See our categories B15, B17, B21, W1-8, W1-12.
- Social media and television continue to expand the food culture market, helping print. See our categories A07, A08, A09, A13, B18, B19.
- Health and Nutrition have joined with Ethics and Environmental concerns, spreading the same issues worldwide. For instance Vegan has become mainstream in very few years, everywhere. See our categories D01, D02, D08, D09, E06, E13.
- Local has become the key word. There is a major effort everywhere to save local food culture, and transmit it. It is helped by tourism and the locavore trends. Slow Food has won. See our categories C01, D05, D07.
- Quick and easy comfort food is still very important, especially in Asia. See our category E01. In 1995, when we started, this was the leading category.
- Children and Family food books are rapidly expanding. See categories D03, D11.
- There are minor new trends starting now Sports and Food, see D13.
- Seniors and food, see D12 Breakfast, see E15.
- Embassies and Gastro Diplomacy, see F08.
4- Digital
We have 19 categories (15%) exclusively for digital, with 195 digital entries now finalists (15%). You can find in the list of Finalists approximately 50 free Food and Wine PDF to download, selected for their quality, nearly all produced by public institutions. Unfortunately, they tend to disappear quickly, so do not be surprised if you cannot find them. We cannot help. See categories A06 for FAO, UN-IOM, UNDEP-Canada, UNESCO, UNWTO or B17, W1-12. For cookbook professional online newsletters, see B03.
5- The next step
The Best in the World will be announced in Yantai, China at the Gourmand Awards annual event May 25-28, 2018. The top 3 in each category will have the right to Best in the World. We do not announce results before the event. It is not necessary to attend to win. Apart from the honors at the event, the major opportunity is meeting the other participants, for business and pleasure. As previous participants have written, it may be the best four days of your life if you participate. Guests from over 60 countries had already indicated they wanted to come as of January 12, 2018. There are among them 81 guests who have already been at our events in Yantai. They come back even if they have no entry in the competition, it is so important for networking, business, and food culture.