Visitors are being encouraged to ‘Get on yer bike’ to Comber Farmers’ Market on the 6 September 2018, following some of the many beautiful scenic routes to the town, including the Comber Greenway.

The award winning artisan food event has a delicious variety of fare from local producers with meat, dairy, baked goods, jams and chutneys, charcuterie, fruit and veg and much more.

Cyclists can filled their rucksacks or baskets with award winning fresh produce from Northern Ireland with many of the producers in attendance having recently secured ‘Great Taste’ awards to add to many more awards they have received for their quality food and drink.

Comber Farmers’ Market is a great morning out where visitors can meet new people and talk to the friendly bunch of traders, and have a beautiful morning tea in St Mary’s Church.

Sustrans NI will be attending the market on the 6 August to promote the upcoming ‘One Path Festival’ on the Comber Greenway, a shared space for all including cyclists.

There will also be a ‘pop up’ theatre from Big Telly Company, sharing ‘Inside Stories’ from the town, stories which have been shared over the last few weeks from local people in the ‘Comber Story Shop’.

As the popularity of Comber Farmers’ Market grows, the town is quickly becoming a top food destination, ‘The Home of Great Taste’.

Held in St Marys Church car park of Comber Square the first Thursday of every month from 9am to 1pm, Comber Farmers’ Market is well worth a visit.

Car parking is available in nearby public car parks, at Parkway on Killinchy Street and the car park of 1^st Comber Presbyterian on High Street.

Find out more about the popular monthly food event at www.combermarket.co.uk or on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram.

Passengers on Air Tahiti Nui flights to and from as well as around the exotic islands of French Polynesia are now enjoying artisan popcorn from Belfast.

Cloud Corn, based in east Belfast, has begun supplying the airline serving international centres as well as hundreds of islands with its increasingly popular range of hand blended popcorn snacks.

The contract followed the Belfast artisan company’s recent participation in a major food trade show in Hamburg.

The popcorn range was launched in March by Michael Heaslip, founder and managing director of Food Stories, a Food NI member company. Michael founded Food Stories in 2014 to provide marketing and distribution services to smaller food companies in Northern Ireland and has since launched a number of his own brand products, including artisan Cloud Corn.

Explaining his decision to launch Cloud Corn, he says: “The growth of popcorn in the UK has been phenomenal over the past five years. We saw an opportunity in the local market and also outside the UK and Ireland and decided to develop a range that combines established and unique savoury flavours such as our Sweet Chilli BBQ popcorn.

“We developed a specific recipe to pair with craft beers and the sweet chilli goes really well with many of the excellent brews now being produced.

“We knew from the start of the venture that the popcorn market in Britain and Ireland has become highly competitive and that we had to look for business abroad for sustainable growth. We decided, for instance, that all the nutritional information on the packaging should be in six languages – English, French, Spanish, German, Dutch and Italian.

“As a result of this strategic focus, we’ve been taking part in major trade shows, assisted by Invest NI, in Europe and further afield and have developed an extensive network of good contacts, now including Air Tahiti Nui, certainly our most remote customer to date. We’ll have to start thinking about including the local Tahitian language in our packs in the future.

“The Tahiti order is an encouraging breakthrough for us at such an early stage in our development. We provided samples at the request of their buyer and an order followed shortly afterwards. The business is a great endorsement of the quality and flavours of our popcorn,” Michael adds.

The company, which has already signed up for SIAL food expo in Paris in October, has also won business with retailers in Canada, France, and Spain.

Cloud Corn has created a comprehensive range of sharing bags and smaller packs for its existing three-strong range – Salty, Sweet and salty, Sweet Chilli BBQ. The company, which employs four people, created the recipes for the snacks from extensive market research.

The popcorn is also gluten-free, high in fibre, suitable for vegans and made only from natural ingredients.

 

 

Picture:Getting ready for Tahiti, left, Jonny Murphy, local accounts manager, Elizabeth Curdy, operations manager, and Michael Heaslip, managing director, Cloud Corn, Belfast

Food NI member Broighter Gold Rapeseed Oil from Northern Ireland has been shortlisted in this year’s prestigious British Farming Awards.

The company, based on a family farm near Limavady in county Derry, is in the running for the Diversification (Small) category in the awards.

The awards showcase diversity and a willingness to adapt regardless of farmers, farm workers, new entrants or a member of an established family business.

Broighter Gold is Northern Ireland’s award winning producer of a range of rapeseed culinary oils. The small business, which has won UK Great Taste Awards was formed by Leona Kane in 2006 as a diversification project on Broglasco Farm owned by husband Richard.

The company is a leading supplier of culinary oils to retailers including Sainsbury’s as well as top chefs throughout Ireland. Other customers include La Grand Epicerie in Paris.

The Kanes farm over 700 acres at Myroe in Co Londonderry, a farm which has been in the family for over 100 years.

Organised by AgriBriefing, parent company to Farmers Guardian, Arable Farming and Dairy Farmer, there are 14 categories in total. All recognising farming’s core sectors – arable, beef, sheep, dairy and machinery – as well as acknowledging the vast array of farm diversifications emerging as farmers add value to their businesses.

British Farming Awards aims to showcase innovation and adaptability – no matter what the size and scale of the business.

The awards will be announced at a gala event in the National Exhibition Centre, Birmingham on 18^th October.

 

Food NI member Ballylisk of Armagh, producer of the successful Triple Rose, a triple cream premium cheese, has introduced a new product that’s washed in sweet cider from Armagh Cider Company.

The new cheese is based on Ballylisk’s existing triple cream product that was launched last year and is selling well in Northern Ireland, Great Britain and other parts of Europe.

Triple Rose, for example, has won business with Heritage Cheese at Borough Market.

Triple Rose has also attracted the attention of leading chefs in Britain and Ireland as well as major retailers in the London. The cheeses are hand crafted by Dean and brother Mark in the dairy’s purpose-built creamery in Portadown.

Dean Wright, Ballylisk’s, founder and managing director, commenting on the new cheese, says: “I wanted to add an additional product using Triple Rose as a base and looked at harnessing the potential of another great taste from Armagh, premium cider.

“Armagh Cider Company is a close neighbour and produces a range of superb ciders. So, it made sense to use one of their award-winning ciders to create a new cheese. Washing our triple cream cheese with the cider and then maturing for around two months has created a rich and firmer cheese with a distinctive Armagh apple flavour,” he adds.

Further cheeses are in the pipeline at Ballylisk.

Uniquely, Ballylisk only processes milk produced on the family dairy farm. The family has many years’ experience of producing the highest quality milk. This means Ballylisk has total control over its entire operation, from ‘farm to fork’. All produce is branded ‘Ballylisk of Armagh’.

The new cheese maintains this basic branding with subtle changes of Ballylisk of Armagh.

 

 

Multi-award-winning Abernethy Butter from Northern Ireland, a Food NI member, has won business with Adare Manor and Golf Resort in the Republic of Ireland, recently rated as ‘the world’s best hotel’.

Abernethy, based at Dromara in Co Down, is supplying the prestigious hotel, located near Limerick, with its original and dulse creamy butters.

The contract is the latest in a series of successes for the acclaimed butter business run by husband and wife team Will and Allison Abernethy. The butter is hand crafted and hand rolled by the company from fresh milk sourced from a grass-fed herd in Co Down.

Abernethy’s unique dulse butter was used by Clare Smyth, recently named the world’s best female chef, as an ingredient in a dish for the royal wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle.

Allison Abernethy, commenting on the new business, says: “We are delighted to have been approached to supply our butter to this exceptional hotel and resort that draws guests from the US, in particular, as well as from the UK and the Republic.

“It’s immensely encouraging to know that our butter will be on the breakfast, lunch and dinner tables of a hotel that’s now acclaimed as the world’s best.”

A new black garlic butter developed by the enterprising couple has also been endorsed by celebrity chefs and food writers such as Nigella Lawson.

Adare Manor in Limerick scooped the top prize at the 30th annual Virtuoso Best of the Best awards in Las Vegas which is voted for by over 18,000 travel-industry professionals in 50 countries.

Adare Manor has a longstanding commitment to Irish food and drink products.

The hotel, a frequent venue for international golf tournaments, boasts a total of 104 bedrooms and has recently undergone an extensive 21-month restoration and refurbishment. A neo-Gothic structure, the hotel sits in an 840-acre estate that dates back to the 1700s.

Those voting in the Virtuoso Awards praised Adare Manor for being an iconic hotel that ‘epitomises excellence in luxury hospitality’.