Last year, you voted in your hundreds to help celebrate Kent and Medway’s buzzing food and drink industry – and we want to do it all over again.

Nominations are now open for the Kent & Medway Food & Drink Awards 2025, so what are you waiting for? Submit your favourite hospitality heroes here.

Whether your local pub landlord deserves a moment to shine or there’s a rising star in the culinary community that people need to know about, we want to hear from you.

With nominations made by the public and the winners selected by a panel of independent industry experts, the awards aim to give credit where it is truly due and recognise those who work tirelessly to deliver exceptional food and drink.

Don’t miss out on a chance to showcase your foodie favourites! Nominations are open until 5pm on Thursday, January 9 2025.

The finalists will be announced in KM Group newspapers and KentOnline from Wednesday, February 12 2025 and winners will be revealed at the Chilston Park Hotel, near Maidstone, on Tuesday, February 25 2025.

We want you to vote for your top picks across 11 categories:

Beverage Producer of the Year

Chef of the Year

Farm Shop / Deli of the Year

Food and Drink Hero

Food Producer of the Year

Hospitality Champion Kent

Hotel of the Year

Pub / Bar of the Year

Restaurant of the Year

Street Food / Pop Up of the Year

Tearoom / Coffee Shop of the Year

Click here to submit your nominations. Businesses are also welcome to nominate themselves in any category and there’s no limit to how many nominations you can make - all we ask is that your nominations are for businesses based in Kent or Medway.

Find the list of winners from last year’s awards here.

The panel of industry experts that will be judging this year’s awards includes professional chef Mark Prior, ORIDA Hotels’ Lewis Mackay-Bell, Jamil Trofder and Tarak Ahmed from the Jumeira Restaurant Group and Aaron Sergejenkovs Telford, who runs Kent’s four Café Nucleus restaurants.

Our head sponsor for this year’s awards is DDS International, a group of leading health and safety consultants based in Sittingbourne. The team provides advice, training, health and safety consultancy and highly effective management and support to businesses across the UK and worldwide.

The Kent & Medway Food & Drink Awards are also sponsored by Shepherd Neame, Kent Frozen Foods (kff), the Bargain Warehouse, Jumeira Restaurant Group, Lumina Energy, Clive Emson Auctioneers and ORIDA Hotels Maidstone.