Mount Charles today unveiled student restaurants in Southern Regional College’s brand new £35 million award-winning 14,000 square-metre landmark campus in Armagh and its new 4,500 square-metre £15 million campus in Banbridge.

Ireland’s largest support service organisation will provide food and beverage services to College staff and students returning to undertake Further and Higher Education qualifications, Training for Success programmes, as well as those taking part in a range of apprenticeship programmes.

The redevelopment serves as an opportunity to introduce new food and beverage offerings including the installation of Urban Square Food Co restaurants, on both campuses, designed to create vibrant spaces where students can meet and collaborate.

The Mount Charles team plans toshowcase healthy, nutritious food in a fun and welcoming environment, with street food menus from around the world, granola bar, salad bar, vegan and regional dishes, throughout the year as well as ‘grab and go’ convenience options.

An Urban Square Coffee Co dock has also been installed in the Armagh Campus,serving sweet treats and the finest barista coffee, roasted locally in Lisburn.

Mount Charles’ Chairman, Trevor Annon said; “The new College buildings in Armagh and Banbridge have been designed to facilitate world class professional and technical education and training and we are delighted to provide students with nutritious, value for money, quality meals while they study here.

“We recognise the importance of working in partnership with each campus to ensure individual requirements are met and expectations are exceeded.”

Raymond Sloan, Director of Client Services at Southern Regional College said: “Mount Charles has been successfully working in partnership with Southern Regional College throughout our campuses for many years. We have recently opened the doors of our two new campuses at Armagh & Banbridge, following an investment of £50m in these new buildings, which provide first class, industry standard, teaching spaces for our students.

“Mount Charles continue to partner with us in the delivery of excellent catering and snack facilities within our new campuses. New cafés and coffee docks are now open for students and staff. We believe that campus catering forms an important element in delivering a great campus experience and we’re delighted to continue to work with Mount Charles”.

WE MUST NOT TRADE AWAY OUR CHILDREN’S FUTURE

We know you want the food you eat to be produced to world leading standards, you’re passionate about British food and recognise that good quality food is at the heart of good health.

Jamie Oliver has launched a new campaign which highlights how trade deals that are currently being negotiated will impact on the food on our plates for years to come. He’s joined by Joe Wicks, Anita Rani and a host of well-known faces. Take a look.

Hellbent, the successful Northern Ireland producer of South African beef sausages, burgers and meat balls, has launched new pork products which have already won business with Tesco Northern Ireland.

The two novel products – Cherry Balsamic Pork Belly and Apricot and Mustard Pork Belly – have been listed for seven Tesco stores. They are based on traditional South African snacks which have been developed by the Hellbent teamintostand-alone meals.

The company has previously been successful with Aldi Ireland for its South African Boerewors beef sausages, a recent Great Taste Award winner, and with the sausages, burgers and meat balls with the Henderson Group’s EUROSPAR supermarkets in Northern Ireland as well as a string of delis.

The new products, according to Hellbent director Louis Ludik, are based on Oepsie which are popular in South Africa as snacks before a main grilled meat dish. “We developed thesnacks into meals with autumn and winter in mind,” says Louis. “The products can be cooked in the oven and well as the grill and can be enjoyed with sticky rice, in a bun or in a sandwich. They are very versatile dishes,” he adds.

Louis and his business partner Schalk van der Merwe – both from South Africa who came to Northern Ireland as professional rugby players – developed the cherry balsamic and apricot and mustard glazes for the new pork belly products.

“We teamed up with Connolly’s Meats in county Monaghan to produce and package these products for us,” Louis continues.“The product development started before COVID-19 and presented a lot of challenges.

“This meant we could not really be in the factory and had to pause development during the hard lockdown. We had to be really conscious in developing the product safely while trying to stick to our original timeline,” he adds.

“We started our journey of delicious culture collisions by making Irish beef into boerewors. Now we’re taking Irish pork belly and giving it some serious South African flavours with our balsamic and cherry ‘Oopsie’ inspired sauce and our honey and apricot glaze,” he says.

The Tesco order is the outcome of discussions between the retailer’s buying team and Hellbent and is the small food producer’s first business with the UK supermarket.