The business in the north of the county beat off stiff competition to take the accolade.

The Norfolk Deli in Hunstanton is celebrating after being named the best in the region at the National Farm Shop and Deli Awards 2020.

The awards, broadcast for the first time via social media following the postponement of the show due to the Covid-19 outbreak, were hosted by Nigel Barden, and spanned 11 categories. He said: “From a fantastic collection of speciality retailer finalists, dedicated to artisan quality, service and the communities they serve, we now have the very best of the best! What a fabulous group of winners they are; shining beacons in their respective fields – truly 2020’s finest!”

“We were the only Norfolk business represented at these awards this year,” said Mark Kacary of The Norfolk Deli. In what was an incredibly competitive category. To have been a finalist in the “Deli of the Year” alongside seven other fantastic delis from across the country. was a huge achievement for a small business located in a small North Norfolk coastal town.” The national winner of this category was Panzer’s Deli in St John’s Wood.

“We strive each year to be better and hope to bring this award home with us one day,” Mark added. “Funnily enough, when we saw that we hadn’t won I decided to have my hours’ exercise with the dogs, and only discovered that we had won the East Anglia regional award when my daughter phoned me from Vancouver to wish me a happy birthday. We were chatting about the awards and then she said, “but of course you do know that you have won an award, don’t you?”.

The Farm Shop and Deli awards are a big deal for many independent food and drink retailers. It gives them the opportunity to position themselves against the best in the country. “We always get very useful feedback from the judges,” said Rosie Kacary. “Mark always uses them as inspiration to make improvements to the business. Winning the East Anglia regional award is an accolade we’re incredibly proud to have won.”

The Norfolk Deli remains open during this difficult time. “We have always provided a delivery service,” said Rosie, “but a couple of weeks ago Mark made a number of changes to the website to make it easier for people to find order a wide range of deli products. The Norfolk Deli home delivery service offers everything from fruit and veg boxes, a “bring the pub to you” box as well as a wide range of made to order meals. Customers can combine these with an extensive range of cheeses as well as one of the best selections of Norfolk products in the county. This is an incredibly important time for customers to support businesses like ours as we are helping to support a myriad of small Norfolk producers, many of whom people would see and buy from at farmers’ markets. This is why we created Norfolk’s Online Farmers’ Market so that customers can source their favourite products even when there’s no farmers’ market to attend. If we want to see our favourite small producers attend a farmers’ market in the future we need to ensure they survive, we hope we can help a little buy giving customers access to their products through our website.”