Winners of British Baker’s Christmas Stars have started to promote themselves and the fact they triumphed in the competition in the run-up to the big festive season.

German discount supermarket Aldi took out a double page spread advert in most of the national newspapers to highlight the fact it was one of the biggest winners of the competition. In its advert Aldi says: “Why have an average Christmas... When you can have an award-winning one?”.

Also, craft bakery business Cinnamon Square has used the Christmas Star logo in an impressive window display.

Martyn Leek, editor of British Baker, said: “This kind of promotional activity was the exact reason we launched British Baker’s Christmas Stars. We know the whole of the industry – from craft to larger producers – creates some wonderful products for Christmas and felt that all this hard work should be rewarded.

“It’s great to see that Aldi and Cinnamon Square are promoting themselves and their wonderful award-winning products in this way.”

Aldi, Morrisons, Cinnamon Square and the Cartmel Sticky Toffee Pudding Co were the big winners when the competition was launched earlier this year. Judging took place last summer in Sussex and included a host of expert judges, led by industry veteran Colin Lomax.

Commenting on its win, Paul Barker, owner of Cinnamon Square, said: “Oh we were really, really flabbergasted when we knew that we’d actually won it, because we put a lot of effort into developing the Christmas Pie Pud. We could see some mileage from it and it’s actually based on our existing mince pie, which is an award-winning one anyway.”