The Christmas holidays are a time to celebrate with family and friends, usually involving a calendar full of fun and joyous festivities. For those in vulnerable positions, this may not be the case as Christmas reminds them of what they don’t have or loved ones they are missing.

Mash Direct, the award-winning vegetable side dish producer wanted to get into the holiday spirit and spread the Christmas cheer by getting involved with two local charities; East Belfast Mission and The Welcome Organisation to support those in need this Christmas.

East Belfast Mission (EBM) strive to support and tackle issues that vulnerable families across East Belfast face. This week Mash Direct donated 240 side dishes as part of EBM’s annual Neighbours in Need Appeal. With the help of other local businesses, 1,000 hampers full of festive treats were crafted and delivered to vulnerable families. Christmas has become an extremely difficult and expensive time of year, for many families these hampers are the only hope of having a Christmas dinner.

Project coordinator of Neighbours In Need, Sandie Gallagher said, “We are extremely grateful to have received such generous support from Mash Direct this year! It is fantastic to receive such brilliant support from a leading local company and we know that their donation of fresh nutritious vegetables will make a huge difference to local families.”

Mash Direct employees also volunteered this week at The Welcome Organisation, a local charity that provides a range of potentially lifesaving services to around 1,400 people who are affected by homelessness across Belfast every year. The Mash Direct team cooked up their award-winning produce at the daily drop in centre which is one of many other outstanding services The Welcome Organisation provide.

Chief Operating Officer of Mash Direct, Jack Hamilton said “it was great to be involved in such worthwhile causes and give something back to the community.  We have been actively involved with the charity Fareshare for 6 years now, donating over 103,000 meals for vulnerable people. We look forward to continuing to support Fareshare as well as Neighbours in Need and the Welcome Organisation to combat homelessness and food poverty across Northern Ireland.”

Glens of Antrim Potatoes has created a three-strong range of hand cooked crisps for Dunnes Stores for the retailer’s Simply Better portfolio.

The company, based at Cushendall in Co Antrim, a Food NI member, worked with Dunnes to develop Vintage Irish Cheddar and Red Onion, Clogherhead Sea Salt and White Wine Vinegar and Sriracha Chilli flavours. The new range of crisps is now on sale in Dunnes stores.

The crisps are all hand cooked by Glens of Antrim at its Cushendall plant.

Michael McKillop, managing director of Glens of Antrim Potatoes, a family business that employs around 60 people in one of the most picturesque and environmentally clean regions of Northern Ireland, says new crisps for Dunnes is a significant development for the business.

Established in 1972, Glens of Antrim is a longstanding supplier of a broad range of potatoes to leading retailers throughout Ireland, including Sainsbury’s, Asda, Dunnes Stores, Lidl and Marks & Spencer amongst others.

The family business began crisp production in 2015 and opened a new state of the art crisp production facility in 2018 at its main production site at Cushendall. This facility created additional jobs and production capability to export crisp products globally. Earlier in the year, the company secured export business in Singapore.

North Coast Smokehouse in Ballycastle has launched an original smoked rapeseed oil for a range of culinary applications.

The rapeseed is smoked by the small company, which is owned and managed by

Ruairidh Morrison, near the Co Antrim town.

The family-owned and run business is best known for its award winning organic hot smoked salmon which is supplied to leading restaurants as well as retailed at markets around the Causeway and Glens council area especially at the monthly Coleraine market. The company, a Food NI member, also produces condiments such as black pepper and sea salt.

“The new rapeseed oil is the outcome of work over a number of years to develop a smoky flavour, which is on-trend at the moment, for adding to dishes,” Ruairidh says. “it’s ideal for both professional chefs and home cooks wishing to introduce a distinctively different flavour.”

“The new culinary oil is based on my experience of smoking organic salmon in small batches to ensure consistent quality in both taste and texture. It’s essentially a handcrafted product using my own recipe and hot smoking technique in our own small kiln in which we burn beech wood for a distinctive aroma and flavour.

“Our smoke is produced the old fashioned way, by simply burning small quantities of wood. We don’t use liquid-smokes, paints or dyes,” he adds.

“I decided to start smoking dulse seaweed because it is plentiful around the coasts of Northern Ireland and is now widely recognised as being a very nutritious food that’s a very rich source of minerals and vitamins. It contains all the trace elements, such as iron, sodium and potassium, needed by humans and has a high protein content,” he adds.

Natural Umber, the award winning apple cider vinegar from Northern Ireland has just launched with Tree of Life, the UK’s largest wholesaler of healthy, natural and organic products.

Based at Dungannon in county Tyrone, Natural Umber won the UK Great Taste Golden Fork for Northern Ireland and three gold stars this year for its apple cider vinegar, which was launched earlier in 2018.

Fermented differently to other apple cider vinegars, Natural Umber retains the natural sweetness of apples and tastes absolutely delicious.

Natural Umber managing director Michael Mackle says: “We are absolutely thrilled to launch on the UK’s largest distributor wholesaler platform for healthy, natural and organic products. Tree of Life is synonymous with exceptionally high quality health food products and we believe Natural Umber is a perfect fit.”

Natural Umber apple cider vinegar was developed by Mackle Apple, one of the UK’s leading growers and processors of apples.

The launch of Natural Umber with Tree of Life is a massive boost for Mackle Apple, which has over 50 years’ experience, growing and producing apple products.

Established in 2002, Tree of Life supplies over 1,200 independent retailers across the UK on a daily basis and is the major ambient supplier for organic supermarkets including Whole Foods Market.

As the healthy and natural foods market has grown its appeal into the mainstream market, Tree of Life has developed key supply partnerships with major grocery retailers including Ocado and Morrison’s.

Buyer Nigel Briggs adds: “We’re seeing strong sales of fermented foods and drinks, especially apple cider vinegars, so we’re excited to be launching Natural Umber into this growing category”

Natural Umber is available to buy in January from Tree of Life in packs of 10 x 500ml glass bottles.

Fane Valley, one of Northern Ireland’s leading agricultural companies has given three local schools the opportunity of working together to design their business calendar for 2019, in a creative educational project in association with Arts & Business NI and in conjunction with Arts Care.

Fane Valley, a Food NI member, relocated its head office to Moira in 2016 is now a significant employer within the greater Craigavon/Lisburn Borough. As part of a new strategic ‘Reach Out’ project with the objective to engage with their local schools, the farming cooperative secured the services of Arts Care artists Grainne Kielty and Lucy Turner to deliver several screen-printing workshops, interacting with over 100 GCSE pupils from St Ronan’s College, Lismore Comprehensive and Friend’s School, Lisburn with an educational focus on their business interests, history and the ever increasing wider group career opportunities, while discussing the Northern Ireland agricultural sector in a creative and colourful way.

Trevor Lockhart, Fane Valley Group, chief executive, said: “This specific ‘Reach Out’ project in conjunction with Arts & Business NI, and Arts Care is a first for Fane Valley and one we have thoroughly enjoyed. Our brief was simply to reach out to our new communities in which we are operating and to engage with future generations through art, while telling our story.

“We invited the schools to work together to design our company calendar and the results have been very impressive. They demonstrated a collaborative and sharing approach during this activity, which actually was very inspirational. There was real evidence of collective responsibility and joined up ownership for the project. The calendar initiative is one of three arts related projects planned for our wider ‘Reach Out’ programme.”

Mary Nagele, Arts & Business NI chief executive, added: “We are delighted to see Fane Valley activate their Arts & Business NI membership so effectively. They embraced our suggestion of partnering with Arts Care to deliver key CSR and staff engagement projects. It is highly impressive to see them embed creativity within their corporate strategy so effectively, enabling Fane Valley to creatively connect with the local community around the new headquarters in Moira. We look forward to seeing the next stage take shape where they have exciting plans to use the Arts as a tool to creatively engage their staff.”

Dr Jenny Elliott, Arts Care chief executive continued: “Arts Care have really embraced the partnership with Fane Valley and Arts & Business NI for this innovative Arts & Well-being project that has outreached into local schools in the Moira and surrounding area.

“The pupils from three schools worked with our Arts Care’s professional artists to create a stunning set of contemporary art works contributing to the Fane Valley 2019 Calendar. What has been outstanding about this first phase of the project has been the education value for the pupils who through arts participation have learnt through their creativity and imagination about a vital local business established over 100 years ago. Our artists are now looking forward to the next phase of this creative partnership project with more exciting outcomes anticipated for the young participants.”