Hundreds of food products from across the U.S. were honored Thursday as being among the best ethically and responsibly produced items in the country.
The Good Food Awards announced finalists for its 2026 competition on Thursday morning, and California producers were well-acknowledged, with 65 products from the state on the list.
Representing the Sacramento area, four new businesses and longtime Good Food Award winners made this year’s finalist shortlist.
Unsurprisingly, Tsar Nicoulai Caviar was once again named a finalist, giving the Concord-based, Wilton-farmed sturgeon fishery a chance to win four more Good Food Awards.
Two-time Good Food Award winner Corky’s Nuts and new entries JUST Creamery and Real Mojo Foods are the three other companies representing the Sacramento area’s production region at this year’s awards.
Finalists for the oils and grains categories were not announced Thursday, as the judging for those products is set to occur in the spring. According to the Good Food Awards, the organization will release a full list of finalists in April and winners will be announced on June 28.
What are the Good Food Awards?
The annual Good Food Awards, held by the Good Food Foundation, honors the country’s sustainable food producers.
“The Good Food Awards recognizes that truly good food — the kind that brings people together and builds strong, healthy communities — contains all of these ingredients,” the foundation said on its website.
Producers are held to a strict standard regarding food sourcing transparency and ethics and thoughtful, responsible labor practices. Companies may nominate their own products among 18 food-specific categories — ensuring creamed honey won’t face-off with a rolled oats granola bar — each with their own standards.
This year’s competition is the Good Food Awards’ 16th installment, returning to its usual blind tasting format after holding a special previous-winners-only edition for its 15th anniversary in 2025.
Tsar Nicoulai Caviar’s lasting legacy
The renowned caviar and fish producer is once again receiving its flowers from the Good Food Foundation in 2026.
In the fish category, Tsar Nicoulai’s Smoked Sturgeon Pate is up for its third award, while its Sweet ‘n’ Hot Smoked Sturgeon could win its second. Additionally, the $180-for-one-ounce White Sturgeon Reserve Caviar was named a finalist for a first Good Food Award.
Among snacks, the business’s Peppercorn Sturgeon Jerky is a finalist for its first Good Food Award.
As the country’s only ECO-CERT sustainability certified sturgeon farm, Tsar Nicoulai has been making waves in responsibly farming white sturgeon and reducing waste from the caviar production process.
Not only does Tsar Nicoulai repurpose sturgeons into tinned and smoked fish once their roe has been harvested, but the company also cools water for its fish tanks with on-site solar panels and eventually uses the wastewater to nourish fields of flowers and greenhouses of lettuce, according to previous Bee reporting.
If the caviar stalwart sweeps its Good Food Award nominated categories in 2026, it could have 11 total awards to its name.
The California dairy industry’s newest player: JUST Creamery
Less than a year after launching as a paneer and raw milk-focused dairy business, JUST Creamery is nominated for two Good Food Awards in the cheese category.
The foundation named the creamery’s farmer’s cheese and its sheep cheese as finalists. The sheep’s cheese includes only four ingredients: Pasteurized sheep milk, vegetable rennet, cultures and salt.
On its website, JUST Creamery describes its sheep cheese as having “a creamy texture with a subtle nutty finish, perfect for elevating both rustic and refined dishes,” while the farmer’s cheese features “a clean, light flavor with a soft, crumbly texture.”
Though the creamery is based in Saratoga, near San Jose, JUST Creamery’s dairy cows reside on a family farm in Wilton. On its website, JUST prides itself for making products with A2/A2 milk from Valley Milk Simply Bottled in Modesto.
A2/A2 milk comes from cows bred to only produce the A2 beta-casein protein, according to Iowa State University’s Center for Food Security and Public Health. This form of beta-casein allegedly makes milk easier to digest for those with lactose sensitivities and richer-tasting than milk with the protein’s A1 variety.
JUST Creamery’s name comes from three core ideals, according to its website. “Just the Product,” “Just Made” and “Just Practices,” referring to its low-preservative, farm-to-fork and ethical, transparent production methods.
Though it’s unclear when exactly JUST Creamery was founded, its Instagram page goes as far back as July, and its oldest Google Review is from spring 2025.
Corky’s Nuts
In Yolo County’s Capay Valley, Nicole Facciuto and her family are tending to their decades-old tree nut orchards and creating high-quality goods that have already earned Good Food accolades.
In 2020 and 2022, the cold pressed organic walnut oil from Corky’s Nuts took home the Good Food Award in the oils category.
This year, a limited-edition jam is a finalist in the preserves category. The Apricot + Walnut + Rosemary Jam is up for a prize, but it was only available in summer 2025. It’s unclear whether earning a place on the finalist list or winning the Good Food Award will bring the sweet and nutty jam back to shelves.
According to the company’s website, Corky’s Nuts — named for the orchard’s patriarch, Facciuto’s father — prepares all of its organic walnuts and nut-based products in the weeks after harvest to ensure peak freshness.
Real Mojo Foods
Elk Grove-based Real Mojo Foods has the opportunity to win its first Good Food Award in 2026, for its Hot-N-Zesty Semi Sweet & Spicy Pickle Chips.
Owner Dee Siazon launched Real Mojo Foods in 2018, focusing on small-batch, preservative-free pickled goods. Siazon was inspired to dive deep into food preservation after childhood experiences in the Midwest, where she would pick fruits and vegetables to later can and jam.
Real Mojo Foods was supported by the Alchemist Community Development Corporation’s Kitchen Incubator Program, which provides blossoming companies with business coaching, sales opportunities and commercial kitchen access, among other resources.
Siazon works with her mother, Delia, affectionately known as “Mama Mojo,” whose Filipino-style pickled papaya relish, called atchara, makes appearances at Real Mojo Foods’s pop-ups for events like Filipino Heritage Month.
Which California food businesses were finalists at the 2026 Good Food Awards?
Out of hundreds of products hailing from 40 different states, 65 of the Good Food Award finalist products came from California.
Here is a full list of the Golden State’s finalists in the reported categories:
- BAVA Brothers, Charcuterie: Soppressata Calabrese
- Canteen Meats, Charcuterie: Culatta
- Fra’Mani, Charcuterie: Guanciale; Lemon & Rosemary Salame; Spicy Orange & Oregano Salame
- Picnic Rotisserie, Charcuterie: Applewood Smoked Bacon
- JUST Creamery, Cheese: Farmer Cheese; Sheep Cheese
- Point Reyes Farmstead Cheese, Cheese: Fennel Blue and Truffle Brie
- Sach Foods, Cheese: Organic Spicy Habanero Paneer
- Bellwether Farms, Cheese: Basket Ricotta; Sheep Cheese — Sonoma Herb
- Pennyroyal Farm, Cheese: Laychee
- Dandelion Chocolate, Chocolate: 70% Single-Origin Bar Kpalime, Togo and 2023 Harvest
- J. Street Chocolate, Chocolate: 72% Nocino Nib
- Far West Cider, Cider: Nu Dry and Sharing is Caring
- Mount Diablo Cider Company, Cider: Girl Named Sue
- Ethic Cider, Cider: 1870
- Santa Cruz Cider Company, Cider: Strawberry Cider
- Equator Coffees, Coffee: Colombia Las Flores and Thermal Shock Pink Bourbon
- Linea Caffe, Coffee: Organic Ethiopia Cotiti Yirgacheffe Reserve
- Peerless Coffee, Coffee: ROC Colombia
- Steady State Roasting, Coffee: Campo Hermosa Watermelon
- Dandelion Chocolate, Confections: Single-Origin Caramel Bonbon
- YAMI YAMI, Confections: Apple & Wright & Brown Rye Whiskey Pâte de Fruit, Broc Cellars Amore Bianco “Pâte de Vin” and Chamomile Pâte de Fruit
- BrightLeaf Tea, Drinks: Sparkling Earl Grey Tea
- Dandelion Chocolate, Drinks: Chai Hot Chocolate Mix
- Land + Local, Elixirs: Rose Cardamom Meyer Lemon Mixer and Strawberry Snap Pea Shrub
- Yes Cocktail Co., Elixirs: Gingerbread Syrup
- Tsar Nicoulai Caviar, Fish: Reserve White Sturgeon Caviar, Smoked Sturgeon Pate and Sweet ‘n’ Hot Smoked Sturgeon
- Oro Pacific Provisions, Fish: California Rainbow Trout with Lemon Pepper and Smoked Wild Pacific Albacore Tuna
- Koophaus Apiaries, Honey: Whiskey Barrel Aged Honey – Peated Barrel and Wildflower Honey Morgan Hill
- Hapa Honey Farm, Honey: Creamed Honey
- Bungkus Bagus, Pantry: Sambal Goreng Chili Topping
- Gold Ridge Organic Farms, Pantry: Apple Cider Balsamic Vinegar
- Dandy Sauce Company, Pantry: Fermented Sriracha
- Masala Gossip, Pantry: Green Chili Masala Crisp
- Shared Cultures, Pantry: Kombu Garlic Miso
- Picnic Rotisserie, Pickles: Cumin Pickled Carrots
- Real Mojo Foods, Pickles: Hot-N-Zesty Semi Sweet & Spicy Pickle Chips
- Wise Goat Organics, Pickles: Fiery Fungi Kraut, Kraut-Chi and Purple Carrot Kanji
- Clif Family Winery & Farm, Preserves: Organic Savory Onion Jam
- Corky’s Nuts, Preserves: Organic Apricot + Walnut + Rosemary Preserves
- McEvoy Ranch, Preserves: Ginger Jam
- Saba Jam, Preserves: Rangpur Lime Silgochu Marmalade
- SPIRIT Almond, Snacks: Black Garlic Almonds
- Midnite Granola, Snacks: Black Sesame Coconut Pecan
- Tsar Nicoulai Caviar, Snacks: Sturgeon Jerky
- Figure Ate, Snacks: Spiced Grass Fed & Finished Beef Biltong and Original Grass Fed & Finished Beef Biltong
- Ambix Spirits, Spirits: Poire
- Appanage Brands + Pekut and Carwick Independent Bottlers, Spirits: Ortolan Damson Plum Liqueur
- Jettywave Distillery, Spirits: Small Batch Absinthe
Camila Pedrosa is a service journalism reporter at The Sacramento Bee. She previously worked as a summer reporting intern for The Bee and reported in Phoenix and Washington, D.C. She graduated from Arizona State University with a master’s degree in mass communication.
