Applications are now open for attendance at Gifted, The Contemporary Craft & Design Fair 2021.
The fair will take place from 1st – 5th December 2021.
Attendance at the event is through the small business programme so please ask your InvestNI client executive for more details to see if you are eligible to apply.
The closing date for applications is Friday 29th October.
Mark Douglas from Dromore, County Down has been crowned Northern Ireland’s Bread Hero in the Tiptree World Bread Awards with Brook Food.
Mark launched Krazi Baker 8 years ago after being inspired by food markets in continental Europe. He came to the realisation that no one was selling bread baked on-site. “You’d see every product under the sun, but never bread baked on-site. I was wondering how to do this and when I went back to work, the answer was staring me in the face – hotplates and soda bread.” says Mark.
Mark bakes on hotplates on site at markets, such as Newtownards, Comber and Carrickfergus and agri-food shows, such as The Balmoral Show, Castlewellan Show and The Antrim Garden Show. Customers wolf down his bakes, which include iconic items such as soda farls and potato bread, as fast as he can make them. His ethos is to bake bread by hand with no additives, preservatives or bread improvers… just natural bread.
Unfortunately, Mark’s business, which also includes teaching at his ‘Krazi Soda School’, was hit hard when the restrictions of Covid halted markets, shows and baking classes. Not to be defeated, Mark established a home delivery service, with deliveries being made across Country Down in a pink Fiat 500.
In normal times, the Tiptree World Bread Awards celebrate the bread; loaves from around the country would be delivered for assessment by a panel of esteemed judges. Building on the great success of last year, the Awards once again celebrated the UK’s Bread Heroes – the people behind the loaves: from farmers and millers, to bakers and educators.
Hundreds of nominations were sent in from across the UK. ‘All the nominees in this year’s Awards truly deserve recognition for their generous, considerate and often altruistic initiatives to help others.’ said Stephen Hallam, Chairman of the Judges.
Thirteen regional winners were selected by the judging panel. In addition to the regional winners, there were a selection of special awards: Brook Food Dream Team Award, KitchenAid Home Baker Hero, Shipton Mill Real Bread Hero, Tiptree Outstanding Achievement Award, Wright’s Flour Award for Innovation, Zeelandia Award for Sustainability.
One of the judges, Britt Box, She Who Bakes, said: “It has been another strange year and it is so lovely to read stories of the bread heroes who have carried on, diversified, given back and risen to the challenge (pun intended!). They are all an absolute credit to their communities.”
An exhibition of portraits by photographer Henry Kenyon of the Bread Heroes will be touring the UK.
International recognition has been awarded to The Toast Office in Belfast as it was crowned winner in the European Visual Identity category in the renowned Restaurant and Bar Design Awards.
This places the brand amongst the most creative and influential restaurants and bars in the world, and pays testament to the unique design concept of the brand, conceived in Belfast by design studio Crown Creative.
Crown Creative is a specialist hospitality design studio, founded and managed by Limavady native Ryan Crown. Having garnered five years’ experience in New York working alongside some of the world’s best hospitality brands, including the Dead Rabbit and Marriott International, Ryan has returned home, and through concepts such as the Toast Office brings a new creative voice to hospitality in Northern Ireland.
Toast Office introduced a new snack concept to The Hatch in Cathedral Quarter. The hot Mac and Cheese, luxury snacks, were prepared in a modern kitchen with a hatch opening on to one of the oldest streets in the city’s Cathedral Quarter, the main hospitality hub.
The Restaurant & Bar Design Awards is the world’s leading independent competition dedicated to excellence in hospitality design and is a benchmark for the industry’s most creative and influential bars and restaurants.
The UK’s top mince pie for Christmas is only available at SPAR stores in Northern Ireland. SPAR’s own label Luxury All Butter Mince Pies have been voted the ‘Best Classic Mince Pie’ for the second time in the BBC Good Food Christmas Taste Awards 2021 and joint winner in the ‘Best Classic Mince Pie’ category in the Olive magazine Christmas supermarket awards 2021.
These two highly prestigious award wins are a testament to the exceptional quality and taste of SPAR’s own label Luxury All Butter Mince Pie. At only £2.00 for a pack of six, the SPAR Luxury All Butter Mince Pies will be customer’s number one staple purchase this Christmas.
On winning the two accolades, Myles Mersh, SPAR UK brand manager, said: “This year our own label SPAR Luxury All Butter Mince Pie is a multi-award winner, winning for two consecutive years ‘Best Classic Mince Pie’ in the BBC Good Food Christmas Taste Awards and for the first time joint winner of the ‘Best Classic Mince Pie’ category in the olive Christmas supermarket awards. This cements SPAR as the go-to retailer for mince pies this year, the foremost Christmas treat.”
BBC Good Food Christmas Taste Award said: “Our judges were impressed by the festive star design, and despite the open top, the mincemeat is golden and not burned. The deep-filled pies have buttery pastry and jammy, well-spiced mincemeat with citrussy notes.”
SPAR Luxury All Butter Mince Pies will be available in participating SPAR stores across the UK from 4October 2021.
Morelli’s Ice Cream has won the Regional Golden Fork for Northern Ireland in the finals of the UK Great Taste Awards. The company gained the award for its caramelised hazelnut flavour of ice cream.
Based in Coleraine, county Derry, Morelli’s is one of the leading producers of authentic Italian ice cream with sales outside Northern Ireland to multiple retailers in Great Britain, including Morrison’s supermarkets and Tesco Ireland in the Republic of Ireland.
The family business, a Food NI member, has been creating ice cream since 1911 in what was then the north of Ireland, now Northern Ireland.
The business was formed by the Morelli family which moved to the region from Italy in 1911, making it Northern Ireland’s oldest and best known producer of a wide variety of ice cream flavours.
Many of the enterprising company’s products have won prestigious Ice Cream Alliance industry, UK Great Taste and Blas na hEireann awards.
Morelli’s double vanilla, for example, was named Best in the UK and Ireland in the Ice Cream Awards in 2019.
In addition to its range of quality ice creams, Morelli’s has also produced frozen yoghurt in collaboration with Clandeboye Estate, Northern Ireland’s only manufacturer of yoghurt. It also has a range of dairy free ice cream.
The Regional Golden Fork is sponsored by business development agency Invest Northern Ireland (INI). The award was presented by Michelle Charrington, INI’s business development director in Britain, as part of the Speciality Fine Food Show in Harrogate.
Collecting the award at a gala presentation for food and drink industry leaders including chefs and food writers were Naldo Morelli, the managing director, and Daniella Morelli-Kerr, the marketing director.
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Naldo Morelli, right, and Daniella Morelli-Kerr, second right, pictured with Michelle Charrington, Invest Northern Ireland
Specialist in vegetable and convenience foods, Mash Direct has been named regional winner of the Best Rural Food and Drink Business of the Year in Wales and Northern Ireland at the 2021 Rural Business Awards, sponsored by Amazon.
The Rural Business Awards (RBA) recognise businesses operating right across the rural sector, acknowledging the breadth and depth of opportunity presented by the country side, and celebrating the achievements of rural businesses.
Clare Forster, Head of Marketing at Mash Direct, said: “It is a great honour to have won this award. The Rural Business Awards highlight businesses that value their rural roots and it is an amazing achievement for all our team to have won this regional award.”
The awards reward businesses who value their rural roots, contribute to employment, infrastructure, and train young people. RBA encourages entrepreneurial spirit in the rural sector and give recognition to excellence in business set-up, operation, and management.
Based on the Hamilton family farm near Comber in county Down, Mash Direct is now a successful supplier of innovative plant-based foods to supermarkets in Great Britain, the Republic of Ireland, the US, Middle East and Asia.
The awards were established in late 2014 by Jemma Clifford and Anna Price – two business owners who work in rural Leicestershire. The first awards were presented in October 2015.
The Rural Business Awards (RBAs) work with partner organisations large and small, Amazon is the headline partner for the third year running. Amongst other organisations to lend their support to the RBAs have been Openreach, Prysm Group via Farm Business Innovation, HSBC, DEFRA, the CLA, Fisher German, Avantigas, the FSB, and the IFB as well as many niche rural organisations and charities.
The aim of the awards is to celebrate the achievements of rural businesses, from engineering through to artisan food producers and professional services organisations.
The awards are decided by an independent panel of judges drawn from the rural business sector, official agencies and rural charitable organisations. The aim is to grow RBA to become the UK’s most prestigious and respected awards for rural businesses and to develop a strong network and community of rural business owners.