A palate-tickling array of delights will be served at the Spectacular Christmas Food Emporium, part of the National Craft and Design Fair, which runs from December 3rd to 7th.

In conjunction with The Irish Times, the emporium is running a competition to give some of the tastiest independent artisan food companies in Ireland a free stand worth almost €1,500 to showcase their goodies. Winners will get a chance to show off their wares and meet potential buyers.

Last year's winners included Irish Piemontese Beef, a low-fat, low in cholesterol, high-protein range of steaks and mince, which is now stocked in Ardkeen Stores, winner of this year's Best Shops award in the artisan food and greengrocer category. The Box Tree, in Stepaside, is one of several restaurants now dishing up its delicious steaks.

"As a result of my participation in the fair, business has grown by an estimated 35 per cent," says farmer Michael Fennelly, who co-owns the company with John Cummins. "

The emporium, which has more than 100 stands of edibles, has helped now-household names to get their products onto shop shelves. These include Cooleeney Farm cheeses, a bronze winner at this year's Irish Cheese Awards; The Scullery, whose preserves, relishes, award-winning pasta sauces are stocked in Tesco and Supervalu; The Chocolate Garden of Ireland, whose dark salted caramel took gold at the 2012 Blas na hÉireann National Irish Food Awards; and Kooky Dough, which generated €700,000 in sales last year and which is sold in SuperValu and Dunnes Stores in Ireland, Waitrose and Sainsbury's in the UK, and Spinneys, LuLu and Choithrams supermarket chains in the United Arab Emirates.

The competition is open to any young artisan food company less than 24 months old. Applications are to be made in writing via email to competition@nationalcraftfair.ie with brief details of what you do, how old the business is and where you sell. The competition closes on Friday, October 17th.

Good luck.