SEQUIM — A local honey producer is among two North Olympic Peninsula businesses that have won 2016 Good Food Awards.
The Sequim Bee Farm at 193 Harbor Heights southwest of Sequim and Finnriver Farm and Cidery at 142 Barn Swallow Road in Chimacum were announced as winners of the nationwide award during a Jan. 15 ceremony at Fort Mason Center for Arts & Culture in San Francisco.
Each were rated as among the top 10 producers in the nation from their category.
Being chosen as a winner “was amazing,” said Meg Depew, who co-owns Sequim Bee Farm with her husband, Buddy.
“We were flabbergasted to enter and just to be [chosen] as a finalist,” she said.
“And then, to find out that we actually won was just beyond our dreams.”
Crystie Kisler, who owns the Chimacum cidery with her husband, Keith Kisler, and their business partner, Eric Jorgensen, also was excited to win an award.
“It is a great honor,” she said. “This year, they had a lot more entries, and so we are very honored and just grateful that the Good Food Awards have included cider.”
The award was accepted on behalf of Finnriver by Andrew Byers, the company’s cider maker.
The Good Food Awards, now in its sixth year, “celebrates the kind of food we all want to eat: tasty, authentic and responsibly produced,” the organization said on its website at www.goodfoodawards.org.
The awards are organized by Seedling Projects, a nonprofit that supports the sustainable food movement.
The Sequim Bee Farm was the only honey-producer in Washington state among the 23 finalists in the honey category this year.
There are 13 food or beverage categories for which 242 companies out of a pool of 1,927 entrants nationwide were chosen as finalists.
Finnriver was one of two cideries from Jefferson County chosen as finalists in the cider category. The second business was Eaglemount Wine & Cider, located at 1893 S. Jacob Miller Road in Port Townsend.
The Depews, who have lived in Sequim for about 12 years, became interested in beekeeping after joining the North Olympic Peninsula Beekeepers’ Association and were mentored by Ed and Winona Giersch.
Buddy works in public service while Meg is a nurse practitioner. They have two daughters in their 20s who live in the area.
They began their bee farm with four hives, Buddy has said, with most of their bees — a New World Carniolan honey breed — imported from California.
Since then, they have added hives of Buckfast bees, a crossbreed of several European species developed in England in a climate similar to that of the North Olympic Peninsula.
In September, the business won a blue ribbon for its honey at the Washington State Fair in Puyallup.
Sequim Bee Farms honey also was chosen as the Northwest Region winner in the Black Jar Honey Contest Tasting Contest in North Carolina, an international competition.
Finnriver received an award for its Fire Barrel Cider, Crystie Kisler said.
The cider originally was made by Drew Zimmerman at the Red Barn Cider in the Skagit Valley, she said.
When he retired, Finnriver owners transplanted 1,000 of his cider apple trees and bought some of his equipment.
They also adopted Fire Barrel Cider.
The farm now has about 4,000 apples trees.
Finnriver, which has been a farm since 2004, sold its first bottle of cider in 2010.
The cidery was one of three winners in the Good Food Awards in 2014, Kisler said. It was honored for its Black Current Cider.
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Reporter Chris McDaniel can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 56650, or cmcdaniel@peninsuladailynews.com.
