Mash Direct, the multi-award winning supplier of vegetable accompaniments and convenience dishes, has named Chilled Supplier of the Year 2019 by Cotswold Fayre, one of the UK’s leading food distributors.

 Cotswold Fayre is a wholesale company based in Berkshire who distribute our range throughout England, from farm shops and food halls to delicatessens and convenience stores.

Based on a family farm at Comber in Co Down, Mash Direct is a multi-award winning producer of convenience foods for customers in the UK, Ireland and further afield..

 The award was presented to Paul Southgate, sales executive at Mash Direct by David Truscott, commercial director at Cotswold Fayre.

Mash Direct, commenting on the award, said: “ It has been an exciting year working with Cotswold Fayre in 2019, and we look forward to continuing this in 2020.

The return of Rare Breed – A Farming Year was the most watched programme in Northern Ireland at 8.30pm last night with almost 140,000 viewers tuning in, equating to a 27% audience share.

Rare Breed – A Farming Year continues on Thursday at 8.30pm UTV where we meet more farming families and see what February has in store for them.   Our families are busy with young animals, be that feeding, competing, or treating.

We meet Crossgar pig breeder Robbie Neill for the first time.  He’s also a fulltime firefighter based in Belfast.  He’s established a herd of outdoor pigs but during the colder months the younger animals and sows come indoors, so it’s an early start for Robbie as every morning they need fed, watered and mucked out before he goes to work. “There’s no gym membership required, this is a good workout in the mornings,” he said.  With two small children and another on the way he comments, “It’s busy in the house and busy outside the house.”  We meet Gloria and her 12 piglets, as well as Big Alistair the boar. We also meet his flock of Suffolk sheep.

Jack Smyth from Newtownsetwart is in Dungannon for the “Stars of the Future” Show and Sale.  He is competing with three of his calves.  . He’s without wing woman Emma today and Jack teases, “She’s selling a wedding dress to some unfortunate cutty.” It’s an exciting and eventful day for the young farmer who won the event last year, so the pressure’s on.

Near Bushmills in Co. Antrim, we meet David Chestnutt who featured in the last series with his Dad Victor.  He is assessing his Texel lambs, in the hope of selling ram lambs in Ballymena or Scotland. He comments it’s more a ‘feeding competition than a breeding competition’ as the breed is such big business, with rams fetching big prices at auction.

We also meet the Stephen Lyons, who is in partnership with his brother John in a contracting business outside Coleraine. They operate mainly in Co Antrim and Derry and with February meaning the start of the slurry season, Stephen is out in the fields near Limavadyspreading slurry using a dribble bar, which he much prefers compared to the traditional method.

The episode ends near Ballyclare in Co.Antrim, where specialist farm vet Diane Beattie starts her day with an unexpected emergency with a sheep. She also diagnoses a sick cow on another farm, explaining the procedure of what to look for.   She says, “I grew up on farm, my dad was a farmer – I like the buzz of going out.”

UTV’s Mark McFadden narrates the series, sponsored by Moy Park, Rare Breed – A Farming Year continues on Thursday 16th January at 8.30pm on UTV.

Kilkeel-based Rooney Fish is already taking orders from its overseas customers for this year’s festive season.

While the rest of the world settles into the new year, Kilkeel-based seafood company Rooney Fish is getting ahead of the Christmas 2020 rush and already taking orders from customers including Michelin-star restaurants, five-star hotels and supermarket chains for this year’s festive season.

Established in 1975, the second-generation family business specialises in catching, preparing, farming and processing the finest seafood sustainably sourced from the Irish Sea. Its products include langoustines, crabs, whelks, scampi whole tails, scallops, lobsters and Millbay Oysters which are exclusively available from Rooney Fish.

Andrew Rooney, managing director of Rooney Fish, said:“We pride ourselves on the quality of our seafood, which is what sets us apart and has helped us build a global reputation. We have customers across Europe calling to book Christmas orders in the first week of January – never mind Valentine’s Day or Easter.

“There is growing demand for our products so we’re looking to take our Millbay Oysters to Japan and Singapore. We now need a licence for another oyster farm which will help us employ more staff.

“Selling overseas has always been an integral part of our business as it is crucial to boosting profit, and the support we’ve received from the UK Government has been incredible. I would encourage other businesses in Northern Ireland to consider exporting and find out how the Department for International Trade can help,” he added.

With 67 employees based in its 6,000sq metre high-tech processing plant in Kilkeel, exports to 15 countries across Asia, Europe, the Middle East and South America account for 99% of the company’s turnover. Orders for next Christmas started rolling in last week from customers in Spain, France and Italy. By February, Rooney Fish expects to receive Christmas orders from South Korea.

Last October, the UK Government’s Department for International Trade provided financial support for Rooney Fish to attend the China Fisheries and Seafood Expo in Shanghai. During the show, the business exhibited its products and met a buyer in Taiwan who ordered 50 tonnes of crab on the same day. Rooney Fish now sells 800 tonnes of crab to China each year and is looking to export its Millbay Oysters to Japan and Singapore in 2020.

Shortcross Gin, Northern Ireland’s original gin, has won business from one of the world’s biggest purchasers of spirits with help from Invest NI

Shortcross, based at Rademon Estate Distillery in Crossgar, county Down, is now supplying gin across Ontario as a result of an agreement with the Liquor Control Board of Ontario (LCBO), the Crown corporation which retails and distributes alcoholic beverages throughout Ontario, Canada’s largest province with over 13 million people. LCBO currently distributes to almost 700 liquor stores. The company is a member of Food NI.

Fiona Boyd Armstrong, managing director of the family-owned and managed Rademon Estate Distillery, commenting on the LCBO agreement, says: “We are delighted to gain the approval for the sell and distribution of our multi-award winning craft gin in such immense global marketplace.

“The agreement is the outcome of extensive discussions and subsequent negotiations with LCBO over the past few years including, most recently, an Invest Ni organised trade mission.It was an exacting process which ended with the endorsement of Shortcross Gin for sale throughout the province.

“As a result of this rigorous process, we are now gearing up to develop what is a marvellous business opportunity for the company in 2020 and beyond,” she adds.

Invest Northern Ireland has supported the development of the Shortcross Gin brand, and helped the company reach a number of international markets.

John Hood, Director of Food & Drink, Invest NI said: “The Shortcross team joined our specialist Irish Whiskey and Irish Gin Trade Mission to Toronto, Canada in March 2019. The programme included meeting with the LCBO buyers, potential distributors and gave important insights into the local Canadian market.

“It is great to see the company now able to add Canada to its export markets.”

Fiona and husband David, the Master Distiller, established Shortcross Gin in 2012 and built a state-of-the-art distillery and visitor on the family estate outside the county Down village of Crossgar.   The unique recipes for the gins have been developed by David Boyd Armstrong.

Shortcross has won a host of international and national awards for the outstanding flavours and quality of its range of gins which also include an innovative Rosie’s Garden Pink Gin.

The innovation-led company creates its gin using fresh water from an artesian stream on the estate and botanicals such wild clover and apples grown there.   These are blended by Mr Boyd Armstrong with juniper, coriander, citrus peels, cinnamon and cassia to create a distinctively refreshing gin.

Shortcross Gin, now Northern Ireland’s leading gin, is exported to over 30 countries including Europe, the Middle East and Australasia.

A single malt whiskey is also being created by Mr Boyd Armstrong and is scheduled for release in the near future.

Established in 1927, LCBO is the chief supplier of alcoholic beverages to bars and restaurants in Ontario, which are generally required by law to purchase their alcoholic products through the organisation, which is based in Toronto, the provincial capital and Canada largest city with a population of almost 5.5 million.

The hugely successful RARE BREED – A Farming Year returns to our screens next Thursday 9th January at 8.30pm, and it is all change again with new families, new farms and businesses, and new challenges, with some familiar faces thrown in!

Rare Breed is the ground-breaking year-in-the-life observational documentary series charting the reality of farming in 21st century Northern Ireland.  In the eighth season of this series we follow ten families steeped in farming and the industry, on a range of farms (dairy to beef to pig to sheep) across the six counties (from the mists of Fermanagh to the Belfast hills to the world-famous north Antrim coast).

Filmed in all weathers, this series follows the families from a variety of farms across Northern Ireland over a 12 month period. We follow the producers of cattle, sheep, bees, llamas and this series, we also meet a vet, and a contracting family who both play vital roles in keeping the agri-food industry going.

In the first episode we meet 23 year old Jack Smyth from Newtownstewart, who farms with his parents and partner Emma.  The family is well-known in the farming world for producing top quality cattle. In January they have their hands full looking after their pedigree and commercial flocks too.

The McGovern family is back. Sean and his four daughters are hoping for a good year at their farm near Clogher in Tyrone. Like thousands of other farmers, their January is spent getting all the jobs done that don’t need good weather. While they work at erecting boundary fencing, they look forward to the coming months.

Near Antrim town, the McConnell family come home after work and school to care for their collection of animals, including goats and llamas. Dad Mark is enthusiastically helped out by daughters Caroline and Olivia, who are proving more and more helpful as they get older.

Near Newtownards in Down, January is an exciting month for beekeepers Valentine and Chris Hodges – they get to say hello to their bees as they open their hives after the Christmas break. But there’s also serious work to be done in ensuring they keep a deadly virus at bay.

Other famers in the series include a pig farmer from Crossgar, a farm vet from Ballyclare, and brothers from Coleraine who are in the contracting business.

Terry Brennan, Head of News and Programmes at UTV said,“Rare Breed – A Farming Year has become a firmfavourite amongst UTV viewers who look forward to the return of the agricultural series each year in our New Year schedule. One again, each of the 12 episodes take us through the year, and show the realities of modern farming and gives the viewer a real insight into the lives of the people who carry on this vital tradition and industry. I’m sure the series will entertain, educate and delight in equal measure.”

The series is produced for UTV by local independent production company Crawford McCann Television. Kelda Crawford-McCann, Managing Director of the company said: “We are delighted with the continued popularity of Rare Breed.  Many of us are just a generation or two away from the land. In fact, no one lives more than a dozen miles from the farming industry. Yet, despite this close relationship most of us are unaware of the realities of life on the land. The 12 episodes totally encapsulate the daily sacrifice made by the people that farm and live in the countryside.”

UTV’s Mark McFadden will narrate the series. Sponsored by Moy Park, Rare Breed – A Farming Yearstarts on Thursday 9th January at 8.30pm on UTV.