The Taste Canada / Saveurs du Canada jury is comprised of volunteers from Canada’s culinary profession appointed by an independent selection committee; each judge abides by our Conflict of Interest Policy. Taste Canada staff, contractors, Advisory Board members, Category Coordinators, Selection Committee, sponsors, donors and spokespersons have no influence on the judging results, and in no way determine the Award winners.

Taste Canada will honour up to twenty jury-selected books, five Gold and five Silver in English and five Gold and five Silver in French, authored by Canadian citizens.

About the Judging Process

• • There are three judges for each award category; there are five categories in English and five in French. The panel of judges collectively is referred to herein as “the jury.” Depending on number of books entered, some panels of judges may judge more than one category.
  • The jury follows detailed judging criteria outlined and customized for each category. Scores are verified by the Awards Committee after each round. We have streamlined our judging process in 2023 and will now only have two rounds of judging. However, for categories with more than 10 books submitted, there will be two steps to Round 1.
  • Judges are appointed by an independent Selection Committee; judges are food professionals, such as journalists, food writers, authors, chefs, culinary instructors, home economists, registered dietitians and other culinary experts, from across Canada. Judges are volunteers and are not compensated monetarily or in-kind.
  • A Category Coordinator is appointed by the Selection Committee to facilitate the judging process; coordinators are volunteers and are not compensated monetarily or in-kind.
  • The identity of the judges is not revealed to their fellow judges, or to the public, until the Awards ceremony. Only the Selection Committee, Category Coordinators, the English-Language and French-Language Chair and the National Chair know the identity of the judges during the judging process.
  • The English-Language Chair and French-Language Chair are paid contractors of Taste Canada. The Chairs oversee the Selection Committee, Category Coordinators, the jury and the judging process and but in no way influence the outcome of the results.
  • A judge may not serve on any one Category panel for more than three years.
  • The jury follows a detailed set of criteria for their specific Awards category as determined by Taste Canada. During the two-stage process, judges rank and score the books based on how each book fulfills each element of the criteria.

Conflict of Interest Policy

No Category Coordinator or judge should have any connection whatsoever to any book submitted in his or her category this year.

In order to protect the integrity of the judging process, no one can serve on an Awards Jury who is:

• • A representative of a publishing company
  • A representative of a public relations firm that promotes culinary books and/or their authors
  • An author nominated in the current year for an award
  • A writer who has published any reviews of any of the books being considered for an award in the category he or she is judging
  • A writer who has contributed editorial material to any of the books being considered for an award in the category he or she is judging
  • Mentioned in the Acknowledgements by the author