Gourmet is a word that gets used a lot in this industry. We use it too, but we try to earn it before we apply it. That means looking at what is actually inside the hamper, who made it, and whether the selection makes sense together. Price alone does not settle the question.

The standard we apply

The word gourmet travels far and loosely across the hamper market. It gets attached to anything with attractive packaging, to ranges above a certain price, to any hamper containing a recognisable brand or a premium bottle. Used this way, the label means very little. It is a claim rather than a description of what is in the box.

When we use it, we mean something specific: the food selection makes sense together as food. Every item earns its place. The savoury complements the sweet. The cheese has something to eat it with. The variety across the hamper is real, meaning there are different things to eat and reach for, not just variations on the same kind of item.

What that looks like in practice is a hamper that tells the recipient, through the food itself, what to do with it. The oatcakes and the cheese make sense together. The chutney belongs with both. The chocolate offers different things at different points. The tea is there because several of the other items are better with it. A selection built this way does not need to be explained. It functions when it arrives.

A hamper that has been padded to look full does not meet this standard. A hamper whose main claim to gourmet is a bottle of wine does not meet it either. We are not against wine in a hamper, and several of our own ranges include it. But the food has to justify the label on its own. If the selection falls apart when you remove the bottle, it was not gourmet to begin with.

The same applies to filler: products included to add visual weight rather than genuine variety. Generic crackers, ordinary branded confectionery, items available in any supermarket. When a hamper contains these, it has not been built around the food. It has been stacked with it. The recipient can usually tell the difference.

What we look for in the food itself

The products in our gourmet range come from micro-producers across the UK and Ireland. We find most of them at Speciality and Fine Food fairs and markets, and through supplier relationships built over more than twenty years. These are small makers who are serious about what they produce: an artisan cheesemaker in Cork, a bakery in Armagh making handcrafted shortbread, a producer in Galway whose sodabread toasts have been made long enough for the recipe to be distinctive rather than generic.

Their products are specific and, in most cases, not available through supermarkets. That matters because it changes what the hamper does for the recipient. When someone opens a hamper and finds something they have not encountered before and genuinely enjoy, they often go looking for more of it. That is the response a gourmet hamper should generate. It is harder to achieve with products the recipient already knows.

We also pay attention to balance. Not every item needs to carry the hamper equally. Some items do the main work: the cheese, the centrepiece savoury, the standout chocolate. Others support them: the oatcakes to accompany the cheese, the chutney and preserves, the tea. Getting that balance right means the selection works as a whole rather than as a collection of individual products that happen to be in the same box.

All of this applies across the Gourmet Hampers range, regardless of price point. The standard does not change as the hamper gets larger. What changes is how much the selection can do.

Emerald Irish Hamper (£97.40)

The Emerald Irish Hamper is a useful place to start because it shows what the gourmet standard looks like at a price point most people would consider accessible rather than high-end.

Every product in this hamper comes from Ireland. Not as a marketing theme, but as a genuine selection principle. Carrigaline Garlic and Herb Handmade Cheese from Cork. Crossogue Handmade Country Fruit Chutney from Tipperary. Foods of Athenry Gourmet Honeyed Sodabread Toasts from Galway. Butlers Chocolates from Dublin. SD Bells Tea from Antrim. The county labels are there because they tell you something real: specific producers, in specific places, making specific things. This is not a themed hamper in a decorative sense. It is a hamper where the provenance of each item is part of the selection decision.

The balance across the hamper is deliberate. The cheese has the chutney and the oatcakes to accompany it. The chocolate provides variety in type rather than just quantity. The tea creates a reason to slow down with the savoury items rather than working through everything at once. None of this is accidental, and none of it requires a high price to achieve. It requires the right decisions about what to include and what to leave out.

This is why gourmet is not a price category. It is a standard applied to the selection. At £97.40, this hamper meets that standard because of the decisions that went into building it, not because of what it costs.

“The hamper was beautifully packed using wood shavings instead of plastic. We are most satisfied with the contents, unusual cheeses and artisan products from various sources in Britain and Ireland. Their various tastes reflect the care put into their making and the result is really wonderful. We look forward to buying from BasketsGalore soon again.”

-Meryl D.

Emerald Indulgence Irish Hamper (£118.88)

When a gourmet hamper moves up in price, it should do so for a specific reason. Not by including more of the same kinds of things, but by giving the recipient things to reach for that the smaller hamper did not have.

The Emerald Indulgence Irish Hamper adds Forest Feast Smoked Irish Almonds and Peanuts from Armagh, Olly’s Farm Single Origin Honey from Dublin, Skelligs Orange Chocolate Brittle from Kerry, and Islander Spicy Relish from Antrim to the foundation of the base range. These are not upgraded versions of what is already there. They are different products that do different things.

The smoked almonds give something to reach for separately from the cheese. The single origin honey functions differently from the fruit chutney: it pairs with the sodabread toasts, but also with some of the chocolate, and it is the kind of product a recipient tends to finish slowly, returning to it across multiple sittings. The orange chocolate brittle introduces a flavour profile the standard chocolate selection does not cover.

The question we ask at each price step is not whether the new products are better than the existing ones. It is whether they add something the hamper could not already do. If the answer is yes, the step up is genuine. If the answer is no, the hamper has been padded rather than developed.

“Basket galore choice of gourmet hampers are the best around (I did a lot of searching!) and at the right price. The lovely mix of savoury and sweet goods of great quality too makes them very tempting…even for me! I am pleased to say that this was my second year of ordering from Baskets Galore and my friends who received them loved them Siobhan….a very happy customer”

-Siobhan O.

Emerald Treasures Irish Hamper (£177.78)

At a higher price still, the test changes. It is not just whether there is more to reach for. It is whether the hamper now contains a genuinely different kind of food.

The Emerald Treasures Irish Hamper includes Lecale Harvest Slow Cooked Northern Irish Artisan Meat from Down. This is not another confectionery item or an additional preserve. It is a proper savoury addition, produced by a specialist using a slow cooking process. Its presence changes what the hamper is suited to. A hamper containing it is not just a collection of quality snacks for one person. It is a proper food occasion for a small group.

The rest of the selection maintains what has been built across the Emerald range: Carrigaline Handmade Cheese, sodabread toasts from Foods of Athenry, Ditty’s Handmade Irish Oatcakes, Butlers Truffles, handcrafted shortbread from Holmes Bakery in Armagh. The foundation holds across the range. The Lecale Harvest meat builds on it rather than replacing anything.

The hamper also arrives in a lidded wicker hamper rather than the magnetic valise case used at the lower price points. This reflects the contents rather than upgrading them cosmetically. A larger, heavier, more varied selection needs more space and structural support. When the packaging is proportionate to what is inside, it is because the contents drove the decision. When the packaging outpaces the contents, it is usually because something else did.

“As we live overseas I try to find interesting gifts for our families back home. Having sent several hampers from different organizations over the years, I have to say that the feedback received for the Irish Gourmet hamper from our elderly parents was overwhelming!! The quality, variation and packaging were fabulous. We have received several emails from them loving every delicious morsel. The delivery was exactly as promised. Will not be using any other company from now on. Thank you”

-Sandra

What we keep coming back to

We have been making hampers since 2002, and the measure we return to consistently is a straightforward one: would the person who received it want more of what was inside? Not another hamper necessarily, but more of the specific things that were in it. That is the question the gourmet range is built around. The food has to be good enough to prompt that response.

We started building this way because we noticed something early on: the hampers we were most confident in were the ones where the recipient could name what they had enjoyed and why. That is still the clearest test we have.

That is also why we update the range. Not to introduce novelty for its own sake, but because we continue to find producers whose work would genuinely improve our existing selections. Some of those suppliers have been with us for years. Others were found more recently at food fairs. What they share is that they make specific things to a high standard, and those things are not widely available elsewhere. When a product stops meeting that standard, or when we find something better suited to the selection, we replace it. The hamper is always the test, not the supplier list.

If that is what you are looking for, the Gourmet Hampers range shows what is currently available. For the full Gift Hampers range, including wine and cheese, non-alcoholic, and sparkling options, the main Hampers page covers everything we make. The same standard applies across all of it: the food has to be worth opening.

Published: May 2026 

Author: Amy & Effie Earth