BOOM awards terms and conditions

Best of Organic Market Awards 2025

Terms and conditions

Entry fees

Payment must be made at time of entry via the online entry form. 

*Early bird offer (10% discount already applied throughout December 2024) for products/ businesses certified by Soil Association Certification.

Multiple product entries are welcome and you will receive 25% off 4th entries or more.

Organic businesses certified by Soil Association Certification with an organic sales turnover under £85K are eligible for a free entry code offer. This is limited to 1 free entry per business. Licence numbers will be checked and any false application of the discount code will lead to immediate disqualification. Use the discount code smallbusiness upon checkout.

The Organic for All Awards are free to enter.  

Cost of entry per category: £75 +VAT for Soil Association-certified businesses. £150 +VAT for businesses certified with another certification body.

All entries must be made online at https://boom.awardsplatform.com/ - live until 11:59pm on 3rd February 2025. 

Contact details for entrants experiencing any difficulties: boom@soilassociation.org, tel: 0117 914 2440. 

Refund policy

No refunds can be made for entries cancelled or retracted. 

Unfortunately we cannot accept any entry that does not meet the eligibility criteria. In the event of a product, business or initiative not meeting the eligibility criteria, no monies can be refunded. 

We also cannot accept product entries that do not meet the delivery specification requirements for judging. In the event of a product not meeting the delivery deadline, no monies can be refunded. 

If the judging of a particular category is cancelled and there isn’t a suitable alternative category, a refund can be issued.

General terms

The organisers reserve the right to:

• place entries in whichever category they feel appropriate. 
• cancel any category if there are insufficient entries to run it. 
• withhold an award in any category if, in the judges’ opinion, no product reaches the necessary standard. 
• withdraw an award at any time if, in their opinion, the actions of the recipient or nature of the winning product threatens the integrity of the Soil Association Certification BOOM Awards. 

A bronze, silver and gold award winner will be selected for each category and winners will be announced at the Awards Ceremony on 10th July 2025.

Organic certification requirements

The following categories require organic certification by Soil Association Certification or another official and accredited certification body. You will need to upload valid certificates to complete your entry (although you can start and save your entry without it).

• All Organic Food and Drink Product Awards 

• All Organic Beauty and Wellbeing Product Awards* (GOTS if applicable, COSMOS Organic for cosmetics products, or Soil Association Health and Beauty scheme) 

• Best of Organic Fashion and Textiles Products* (GOTS) 

• Organic for All Awards – if your activity requires organic certification under GB law (for example, if you are an independent retailer processing or selling any unpackaged organic products i.e. fresh produce / dry goods refills), then you would need to submit the requisite licence for trading.
  

*If you are selling B2B, or if you are selling B2C only and therefore aren’t certified, please provide supplier certificate/s.

If you don’t have access to these documents, you may need to consult your quality/technical team or whoever is the named licence holder in your company to get a copy.

All certificates must be valid for the full period of the BOOM Awards programme - both at the time of entry and at the time of the Awards Ceremony. If any certificates are due to expire before the Ceremony, we will be in touch to obtain updated copies. 

Organic Food and Drink Product Awards

Products entered must be available for purchase by the general public in the UK for at least 3 months in 2024-25.

New Products must have been launched since 1st January 2023. New Products must have been launched by 1st April 2025 at the latest and be shelf ready, in retail-ready packaging.

All food and drink product samples must be delivered to the judging venue at the date and time communicated by the BOOM Awards Team – detailed communications will be sent out about this nearer the time. 

All food and drink product entries are judged on quality and taste and not organic story, with the exception of the Baby and Children’s and New Product categories which require some additional information. There will be 3 judges per category.  

Organic Beauty and Wellbeing and Fashion and Textiles Products Awards

Products entered must be available for purchase by the general public in the UK for at least three months in 2024-25. 

Finalists will be asked to send four product samples directly to judges for testing at the date and time communicated by the BOOM Awards Team – detailed communications will be sent out about this nearer the time.

Judging

Judging for all awards will take place in March, April and May 2025.

All finalists will be contacted shortly after the judging to confirm if they have been shortlisted for an award, by the beginning of June 2025 at the latest.

Each category will be judged by an independent panel of judges overseen by the BOOM Awards Executive Judging Committee.

The judges’ decision is final. All decisions will be overseen by the Executive Judging Committee with special cases and contested decisions discussed and resolved in this forum. The Executive Judging Committee will have the final say on the finalists and winners.

Due to resource restrictions and tight timescales during judging, we are unable to offer specific feedback to individual entrants. We are also unable to confirm receipt of individual product entries but we will do our best to chase up any undelivered entries.

Winners will be announced at the BOOM Awards Ceremony scheduled to take place in Bristol in July 2025.

Judges will have the option to award up to three highly commended awards, alongside the gold winner, who will receive a trophy at the awards event.