ABOUT THE AWARDS & FESTIVAL
2026 Key Dates
Competition opens: 1st January
Collection points close: 23rd January
Entry closes: 2nd February
Festival: 25th April
‘The Worlds Greatest Festival.’
-Sophia Money-Coutts, Journalist
‘The competition everyone wants to win’
-Stephen Snead, 2024 Homemade Winner
‘Like winning Wimbledon…but better!’
-Tim Nind, 2023 Homemade Winner
“It's a great honour…I am very happy to be able to help people who are at the end of a terminal illness with the sale of my marmalade.” – Hitomi Wakamura, 2025 Homemade Winner of Winners
So much more than just marmalade…
From a small Lake District community to octogenarian marmalade makers in Hiroshima and Australian marmalade for the King this is a shimmering citrus community of people that spans the globe. We are The Dalemain World Marmalade Awards with a hundred volunteers running a competition to find the best marmalade in the world. It began in 2005 with an idea to celebrate community and educate through cooking, champion marmalade makers and raise money for charity. Over the years we have been joined by marmalade makers, spanning generations, from Taiwan to Brazil, Norway to Northern Ireland, India to Argentina.
With generous support from Rathbones, Fortnum & Mason, Westmorland Family and Lycetts we have raised more than £320,000 for charity and had thousands upon thousands of entries posted to us here in Cumbria. Paddington is a patron, naturally, and our winner is cobranded with and sold at Fortnum & Mason.
Every April we stage the Festival at Dalemain Mansion in Cumbria, a family home and farming estate. This is the culmination of the annual Awards with the competition opening for entries in January each year, marmalade jars spill out of every part of the house while on display. The new years winner is announced, we have a range of talks and Marmalade panels and tasting of marmalades from around the world. We are joined in our citrus endeavours to further the cause of marmalade everywhere by two sister festivals in Australia and Japan.
Core Aims
Education
To support adults and children in marmalade making and encourage collaborative education via cooking. To set an international standard for marmalade making globally and encourage improvement and development in marmalade production.
Community
To bring together the communities around the world through marmalade making.
Support Artisan Marmalade Makers
To encourage and support small, artisan producers and provide support for their trade.
Raise money for charity
To raise funds to go to Hospices in local areas or to Hospice at Home - Carlisle and North Lakeland. This charity provides high quality, palliative care and support to patients, family members and carers affected by life limiting illness.
Every penny of your home-made competition entry fee goes to charity because the competition is funded by sponsorship. We are indebted to Rathbones, Fortnum & Mason, Westmorland Family and Lycetts for their continued and hugely valued support.
Every year the Best in Show marmalade is produced and sold online and in our shop and at Fortnum & Masons, with a donation from every jar going to the winners nominated a charity.
Enjoyment
To bring together marmalade enthusiasts of all ages, backgrounds and abilities to Dalemain to celebrate all things citrus.
The festival takes place every April with a series of talks and panels on marmalade making. It begins with the announcement of the category and overall winners. It is an opportunity to sample and buy some of the best marmalades in the world. There’s a selection of Gold and Double Gold marmalades from the Artisan competition, a final chance to buy some of last year’s winner of winners and view the decorations and all of the Homemade marmalades laid out around the house.
It is a particularly eccentric day out for anyone with more than a little marmalade fanaticism in their veins.
What makes it
possible?
The competition and festival are only made possible by all the people who enter each year, carefully wrapping their jars and taking the time to make and send their marmalade to Dalemain.
There is also a huge amount of work that the volunteers put in each year from unwrapping the entries to decorating the displays. The judges are also volunteers taking time out to use their world class knowledge to help us find the best of the best.
We are exceptionally lucky to have partnered with key organisations, Fortnum & Masons, Rathbones, Westmorland Family and Lycetts who support the Awards and Festival with sponsorship, support and great enthusiasm which allows us to continue.
The B & B Marmalade Map
We all know that breakfast is the most important meal of the day, and there’s nothing that makes breakfast quite like a delicious, homemade marmalade. Our Gold and Double Gold winners are all independant establishments who have proven to make the very best marmalade in the country (and indeed the world!) and we have created this map to help our marmalade loving customers to find the best places to stay for a good night’s sleep and a delicious marmalade in the morning. If a tasty marmalade is your breakfast priority (and if not, why not?), book a stay at any of these locations. Websites are below for you to find out more and book your stay.
Lys-Na-Greyne – Luxury Bed and Breakfast in the idyllic surroundings of Royal Deeside
www.lys-na-greyne.com
The Sun Inn - A traditional country pub with five letting bedrooms in Newton Reigny Cumbria
www.thesuninnnr.co.uk
Bewdley Hill House - a quality B&B set in an Edwardian home in Kidderminster
www.bewdleyhillhouse.co.uk
Low Mill Guesthouse – gorgeous historic Dales Mill in the heart of the Yorkshire Dales
www.lowmillguesthouse.co.uk
Sometimes people enter the most exceptionally delicious jars but unfortunately they don’t fall into our definition of marmalade.