Are you known to spend Sunday afternoons grazing Costco samples? Here’s a better idea: April 28 the Good Food Awards is bringing 150 vendors—reindeer salami, coffee, and Russian pelmeni in tow—to the Oregon Convention Center for its first-ever public mercantile, a sampling event the day before its annual awards ceremony, which moved to Portland from San Francisco last year.

Usually, the “un-trade show for tasty, authentic, and responsible food” is a B2B, pre-consumer affair. Sampling the goods like they’re wholesale cubes of Colby-Jack or a suspect bacon-wrapped something was heretofore a perk of industry players. But the foundation decided to open the last two hours of the tasting to the public this year, 4–6pm, after the pros have mingled and judged. You can also buy your favorites directly from the folks who made them. Tickets are $15 ($5 of which becomes a coupon toward a purchase).

Winning products wear a slightly askew blue square badge on their labels like a Pulitzer. Savvy shoppers know the mark of the nonprofit, the Good Food Foundation, and its high definition of “good.” Across 18 categories that include beer, cider, cheese, confections, snacks, charcuterie, and much else, strict criteria focus on localized and sustainable practices, in both food production and the infrastructure of the companies themselves. And they gotta be tasty. It’s a grocery watchdog, if you will, testing clever branding against extensive panels of industry-expert judges.

Oregon has been one of the best-represented states in the awards’ 14-year history, which hands out badges nationwide. So it’s no surprise that the mercantile favors the local crowd, like Umi Organic’s Japanese-style noodles, Three Sisters Nixtamal’s fresh masa and tortillas, and salt from Jacobsen Salt Co. With two salamis as finalists this year, Olympia Provisions will be there, as will snack bar producer Honey Mama’s and the local job creation–focused nut butter company, Ground Up PDX.

In the hot sauce category, Secret Aardvark, also a finalist for this year, and Bobby’s Boat Sauce are bringing the local heat. Two lasting restaurant pandemic pivots are also billed: Kachka’s famed Russian dumplings and Renata’s schmancy frozen pizza. Weeks after opening its new Buckman Neighborhood tap house, Bauman’s Cider will be pouring its apple juice, and N/A options come from both True Tea and Maté Party.

Slightly farther afield is Hummingbird Wholesale, your favorite chef’s favorite all-purpose purveyor from Eugene, and Trout Lake, Washington’s Cascadia Creamery (nab a bit of the Sawtooth cheese, a 2023 winner). Seattle’s Salt Blade, a salumeria that sources its meats from a single farm, is another name to seek out amid the bustle.

And a few names from different time zones, many of which aren’t usually available in Oregon: Ice Aged Charcuterie from Fairbanks, Alaska, is rumored to be slicing their reindeer salami at the event. Speckled Ax Wood-Roasted Coffee, coming across the country from the other Portland, is brewing the only coffee we’ve heard of that’s literally roasted over a wood fire. And KESSHŌ, the bean-to-bar chocolatiers who use words like “studio” and “boutique” to describe their Austin, Texas, production facility, is a necessary punch on your bingo card.

Visit the Good Food Awards’ website for a complete list of this year’s vendors and finalists.