Mackle Pet Foods, owners of the premium range Naturo which includes Chef’s Selection, and popular brands Brandy and Cat Club, has invested £2 million in new state of the art packing equipment to support the increase in popularity across its Naturo pet food brand.

The Tyrone family business established over four decades ago, which has its main site in Moy, has seen demand for its Naturo range increase by over 41 percent in the last year, resulting in the investment at its sister site at Moygashel.

To meet the demands, the company which exports to 12 countries globally is increasing its offering in stores across the UK and has already extended its Naturo brand to Chef’s Selection this year, with more new product development underway.

The investment will support the increase in the Naturo brand supporting production within its packaging areas. Parallel increase in production has prompted the creation of 10 new jobs as the company adds an additional shift to its evening production at its Moy site.

Commenting on the investment and new jobs, John Mackle, managing director, said; “We are delighted to be investing another £2m into our business, on the back of a £3m investment in 2017. The business is continuing to grow even during these challenging times of Brexit and the uncertainty it presents. We are encouraged that in spite of the uncertainty within trade our UK and Ireland and indeed markets globally are responding so positively to the Naturo and Naturo’s Chef’s Selection ranges, as well as our traditional brands. The £2m investment in packaging within the Naturo Range reflects the demand for the product and its popularity. This investment brings with it the need for more people to join our family brand and team, so, as well as investing we are adding to our workforce, by creating 10 new jobs at our site in Moy to meet demand.”

“The recruitment of staff into Mackle Petfoods is really important to me. My father recruited staff over 40 years ago and many are still with us today. For those who have joined in more recent times, many have already been promoted to new roles.

As a progressive, ambitious family company, recruiting and keeping the right people is really important to us, so we want to make sure we are investing for everyone’s futures here at the business,” John added.

Since it was launched in 2013, the Naturo range has increased from 4 varieties to 29, a result of constant innovation and development in response to customer feedback and market trends. The company, which is piloting a healthy fruit project to staff, has also invested over £40,000 into employee health and wellbeing in the past year as part of its commitment to its workforce.

The Mackle family have been creating high quality pet food in Northern Ireland for over 45 years.  Their philosophy is to promote overall health and maintain a healthy digestive system for pets.   Created by Mackle Pet Foods over seven years ago, Naturo is made with 100 percent natural ingredients, locally sourced and fully traceable with up to 60 percent meat. The range contains no artificial colours, flavours or preservatives and is renowned for excellent quality.

Every stage, from sourcing raw materials to delivery to customers, is audited externally by the British Retail Consortium (BRC) and Naturo’s quality systems comply with the best as their “A grade” status confirms.

In 2017, the company invested over £3 million into its Naturo manufacturing facility in Moy, enabling it to more than double production.  The company employs over 200 staff locally across its sites in Moy and Moygashel.

Does your town/village/region have a passion for all things food? Do you offer a unique experience for tourists and locals alike? Do you work together as a community and encouraging the use of local produce? Then you could be Ireland’s next ‘Foodie Destination of the Year!’ 

Applications close on 12 noon on Thursday 11th of July.

We are on the search for Ireland’s premier ‘Foodie Destination’ – one that offers a sense of community spirit, collaboration and support for local businesses. The winner of Foodie Destinations will be one that actively promotes itself as a Foodie Destination to locals and tourists alike.

Application Form

In addition to the Foodie Destination Category, we are also in search of Ireland’s top ‘Foodie Town’. This category refers to both towns and villages. Tourism or vacationing should be a primary component of the local culture and economy. These towns offer a stand-alone, unique food and tourism visitor experience which does not expand out to the surrounding areas.

If you have any questions on the application process, or just have a general query, please do not hesitate to contact jane@rai.ie or 01 677 9901

See www.foodiedestinations.ie for more details and for a template of the entry form

Follow us on Twitter @FoodieDest or on Facebook at facebook.com/foodiedestinations 

Best of Luck!

Restaurants Association of Ireland

Henderson Wholesale, part of the locally owned Henderson Group in Northern Ireland, has dramatically increased its enjoy local own-brand range, giving local bakeries here a huge opportunity for growth with a further £1.3 million sales projected.

Twenty new bakery products make up the Enjoy Local bakery line, all produced collaboratively with local and family run businesses across Northern Ireland who will now enjoy the benefits of Henderson’s huge distribution network to over 360 company owned and independent stores.

Enjoy local was launched in 2015 with a £25 million investment alongside 20 local suppliers, and local Dromore family bakery Graham’s have been added to the roster to help expand the enjoy local bakery line.

Graham’s joins Daily Bake in Armagh and Scott’s Bakery in Fivemiletown to produce the line, with all companies investing in their team and facilities to deliver the enjoy local range which includes salted caramel, coffee and carrot cakes, chocolate orange as well as raspberry muffins and mini cupcakes, Viennese Whirls, Coconut Jam Delights and a cupcake platter.

These new Bakery products join 125 other fresh products under the enjoy local brand, which have been independently taste tested by over 2,000 people in collaboration with the Food and Consumer Testing Suite at Ulster University.

Eamon Taggart, Trading Manager at Henderson Group commented; “At Henderson Wholesale, we have a great relationship with many local food producers, including local artisan suppliers whose growth we can support through our distribution network”

“Therefore, last year, we collaborated with a range of bakers to create a new line of local products that would proudly sit on the shelves of our stores as part of our hugely successful enjoy local range. We’re enabling smaller bakeries to expand their team and distribution throughout the country thanks to our robust distribution network, whereas before they may have only been supplying to their local store.”
Now, through the enjoy local range, the products will be available throughout SPAR and EUROSPAR stores across Northern Ireland.

The expansion will also benefit retailers, enabling them to provide even better value, quality and choice for shoppers, and consumers who are continuing to choose provenance for their food shop in everything from meat and poultry, and now a great new range of bakery goods.

Eamon continued; “to ensure our suppliers and retailers get the most out of enjoy local Bakery, we have made a further investment of over £20,000 towards a comprehensive marketing campaign, which encompasses in-store signage and outdoor advertising and in-store radio.”

Since the launch of the enjoy local brand, the range has experienced a series of developments in the past four years including an exclusive meat range with K&G McAtamney butchers in Ballymena, several Great Taste Awards and a packaging overhaul just last year.

The six-figure investment into the enjoy local brand and packaging in 2018 highlighted local suppliers and importantly, included an official town stamp of where the product was made, baked, bottled, boxed or farmed in Northern Ireland.

Northern Ireland’s Henderson Wholesale has invested over £100,000 in its fresh produce category, working with 19 local suppliers to create a new brand, The Greengrocer’s.

In September 2018, Henderson Wholesale embarked on a full analysis, review and refresh of their produce offering, looking at every aspect of the business from the suppliers, products and branding through to in-store execution.

The result was the new brand, The Greengrocer’s. Comprising of over 110 products, most of which have been newly developed in Northern Ireland, the range is available in-store now. A wider range of convenience products like prepared sliced and diced vegetables, packaged leaves and salads join a new range of stir fry or microwavable packs which include a crunchy kale mix with tender stem broccoli; rice and quinoa mix; aromatic greens and rice and lentil mix.

Neal Kelly, Henderson Group Fresh Foods director, says the range is central to the Group’s ‘Famous for Fresh’ strategy. “In 2018 we received over 13,000,000 cases into the fresh warehouse, in 2019 we expect over 14,000,000. After a review of our produce offering in 2018, we decided to create a new brand that would represent the collaborative relationships we have with our suppliers and customers.”

The Greengrocer’s range is packed with quality products that have been chosen for their innovation, taste and freshness to help retailers’ sales growth in this category.

One of the key criteria in the development of The Greengrocer’s was the advancement of sustainable, recyclable and compostable packaging for the range.

Neal continues; “We have launched The Greengrocer’s range with 40 loose and naked lines and we have eliminated unrecyclable black plastic on more than 30 lines within the range. In three of our EUROSPAR stores we are trialling the use of compostable bags for loose produce with the plan to roll these out across the wider estate over time.”

The range will continue to communicate Henderson’s fresh message that over 75 percent of their fresh food is sourced locally and will be supported by in-store POS communications and supplier information shelf cards, as well as a full outdoor campaign.

SPAR and EUROSPAR Ambassadors will hold special sampling in stores throughout Northern Ireland and promotional pricing will apply throughout the summer months.

Henderson Group is a local family business achieving 87th place on the latest 2018 Sunday Times HSBC Top Track 100 league table of the UK’s private companies. The Group owns the SPAR, EUROSPAR, VIVO, VIVOXTRA and VIVO Essentials franchises in Northern Ireland.The Group is committed to sourcing local fresh foods from farmers, growers and suppliers, with over 75 percent of fresh products sourced on the island of Ireland.

Taste the City’s Producers Showcase will profile the best of Northern Irish produce that flavours the city centre’s most loved dishes. Alongside the producers’ market, we will have a handpicked selection of the city’s favourite chefs who will be cooking up a storm and showcasing your produce with food demos across the weekend. This free to attend event will include live music between demos as well as family friendly activities.

Belfast Restaurant Week will take place from 23 to 29 September as part of the island-wide Taste the Island initiative which runs from 1 September to 30 November 2019.

To express your interest in participating in this event please complete the below form and return to

lesley@theeventor.com by Friday 30th August 2019

BRW19 Taste The City Trader_Form