Tourism and hospitality businesses from across Northern Ireland are being urged to enter the Northern Ireland Tourism Awards – the ‘Oscars’ of the industry – to celebrate their achievements.

The most hotly anticipated awards event in the tourism calendar will take place on Thursday 26 May at St Columb’s Hall in Derry~Londonderry.

Over 300 tourism providers and industry stakeholders are expected to attend the glittering Tourism NI event, being held in association with title sponsor Tennent’s NI.

The evening will celebrate Northern Ireland’s greatest tourism successes over the past year, as well as looking forward to the opportunities in the 2016 Year of Food and Drink.

A total of 12 tourism awards are up for grabs, including Hotel of the Year, Best Food Tourism Experience of the Year and Best Marketing Initiative.

Stephen Finlay, Tourism NI’s Director of Corporate Development, says: “The Northern Ireland Tourism Awards in association with Tennent’s NI are about recognising the very best practice within the local industry and Tourism NI is keen to encourage businesses of all sizes and shapes to enter and attempt to win recognition for their hard work, success stories and professionalism.

“With the Year of Food and Drink initiative in full swing in 2016, much is going on behind the scenes to deliver excellent visitor experiences and to enhance Northern Ireland’s reputation as a foodie destination. These gala awards will offer businesses the opportunity to review their performances and identify their core strengths. Winning could be a matter of simply telling us how you have gone that extra mile to set your business apart from the competition. The potential prize for entering is a prestigious accolade for the quality of your products and services.”

Tourism NI has set up a website, www.nitourismawards.com to provide full details on categories and how to enter. The deadline for submitting entries is 5:00pm on Monday 22 February 2016.

Announcing his company’s title sponsorship of the initiative, Brian Beattie, Marketing Director for Tennent’s NI, said; “We are delighted to support Tourism NI with awards which identify and celebrate outstanding performance and achievement right across our dynamic tourism sector.

“The awards provide an important annual showcase for best practice, innovation and success and, in 2016, they will have particular significance as we mark Northern Ireland’s Year of Food and Drink. As a leading Northern Ireland drinks company, working within the hospitality sector and firmly committed to its development and growth, we are keenly aware of the positive impact that will accrue from positioning our region as a destination for delicious food and drink and we will proudly play an active role in this ambitious venture.

“I look forward to presenting the Awards for Outstanding Contribution to Tourism and for Customer Service Excellence at the Gala Final of the Northern Ireland Tourism Awards which this year will move for the first time to Derry, a city which has long been synonymous with great food and drink.”

Odhran Dunne General Manager of Visit Derry said;
“We are delighted to host the prestigious NI Tourism Awards for the first time this year during Tourism NI’s Year of Food and Drink. This presents a fantastic opportunity to showcase our unique historic and cultural tourism product offering to the industry’s leading professionals. We encourage all tourism providers to enter this year’s awards to celebrate Northern Ireland’s outstanding tourism products, creativity and innovation. The city was named as a runner up in the Foodie Towns Ireland awards and delegates will be treated to the very best of our locally sourced produce in the spectacular surroundings of the historic St Columb’s Hall. We look forward to welcoming the finalists in May and rolling out the red carpet for what promises to be a ‘LegenDerry’ evening”.

Derry City and Strabane District Council’s Year of Food 2016 celebrations “took off” with an Ulster fry-up of local produce for passengers arriving at City of Derry Airport from Ryanair flights from London and Liverpool on Monday morning.

Mayor of Derry City and Strabane District Council, Cllr Elisha McCallion was there to greet passengers as they disembarked from the aircraft to tell them about the city and district’s participation in Tourism NI’s Year of Food 2016.

The Mayor said she was delighted at Derry City and Strabane District Council’s involvement in the year of food and its commitment to hosting a year of fantastic events such as the LegenDerry Food festival in March, Taste our Best in February, Flavours of the Foyle, Clipper Kitchens, Slow Food Showcase and other planned events throughout the year.

She said: “The Year of Food & Drink 2016 gives us the great opportunity to build on our designation as Runner up Foodie Town Ireland 2016 and also to showcase our local food producers, tourism and food retailers and tourism providers and promoting the city and region as a food tourism destination.”

Mary Blake, Tourism Development Officer with Derry City and Strabane District Council said the Breakfast event at the City of Derry Airport was a great way of informing inbound business and leisure passengers of the excellent food offerings in the city and region as well as affording local producers and food providers such as Irwin’s Bakery, Primrose Café and Breslin’s Butchers, the chance to showcase their food products.

She said: “The NI Year of Food & Drink begins with January which is breakfast month and this Friday is ‘Ulster Fryday’ so we thought it was appropriate to begin the week with a special breakfast on a stick greeting all inbound passengers. The breakfast was sponsored by Primrose Café and Breslin’s butcher who have invented a new cabbage and bacon sausage to celebrate Breakfast Month and Irwin’s bakery who sponsored the soda breads and potato breads. This week gives out restaurants and cafes a great opportunity to share their breakfast stories and we would encourage people to breakfast out on 29th January to celebrate Ulster Fryday.”

Charlene Shongo, Commercial and Marketing Manager at City of Derry Airport, stated that the airport was absolutely delighted to facilitate the launch of the Year of Food 2016 this morning. Ryanair passengers arriving from London Stansted and Liverpool were pleasantly surprised to receive a complimentary breakfast with a difference following their arrival to Derry this morning.

Colette Wilson, Marketing Manager, Irwin’s Bakery said: “As a family-owned business that has been baking bread for more than 100 years, Irwin’s was delighted to join with Derry City and Strabane District Council to celebrate the Year of Food & Drink 2016 and treat passengers to a real taste of our fantastic local produce. At Irwin’s we use traditional techniques and recipes to bake our potato and soda farls, which are an essential part of the iconic Ulster Fry. It is a very exciting time for Northern Ireland and the Year of Food 2016 is going to be a great way to celebrate so many Northern Irish brands, highlight the quality of our food and of course the warmth of our hospitality.”
Earlier this week the city hosted a Tourism NI Year of Food Workshop at the Guildhall where local tourism and food providers were informed of the excellent opportunities available in 2016.

Next week as part of the Derry International Irish Music Festival (31 Jan – 07 Feb) award winning local chef Emmett McCourt will join a host of renowned folk singers for a special evening of indigenous cuisine and music entitled – ‘Food & Folksong: A Worldwide Irish Legacy’ at An Cultúrlann Uí Chanáin on Thursday 4th February. Included in the line-up of performers will be Donegal trio The Henry Girls, All-Ireland Singing Champion Mary Dillon, Dublin-based troubadours Alan Burke and Daoirí Farrell, as well as Gaelic singers Kathleen Mac Innes and Kate Crossan. Local company, Northbound Brewery, will offer tasters of their craft beer, and a range of local suppliers have given their support to the event, including William Grant & Co., Broighter Gold, and Donnybrewer Butter. Tickets for Food & Folksong: A Worldwide Irish Legacy are £10.00, available from the Cultúrlann Uí Chanáin box office (02871 264 132) or online at www.culturlann-doire.ie.

Other up and coming events that will have a strong food emphasis during the year will be the Ubuntu festival of world traditions in March and the City of Derry Jazz and Big Band Festival over the May Bank Holiday weekend. While over the summer months, events such as the Angling Festival, the Summer Jamm in Strabane, the Country fest music event in Castlederg, will have food related events organised to complement the event. The Walking Festival in September, the Banks of the Foyle Halloween Festival and an Autumn Harvest event in October will all have a food themed focus to help celebrate the Year of Food 2016.
#EnjoyNI16
#FoodieTowns

TV’s Gastronaut Stefan Gates teams up with chef and food writer Allegra McEvedy to lead the search for BBC Cook of the Year. BBC Radio 4’s The Food Programme has opened nominations for the BBC Food & Farming Awards and one of the most prestigious awards will go to an outstanding cook working in an institutional setting (e.g. a school or hospital kitchen, workplace canteen, a nursery, care home, prison or hospice food service).

Stefan Gates, who has spent much of his television career enthusing and educating people about food, will team up with chef and food writer Allegra McEvedy to select the finalists and eventual winner. The cooks they’ll be looking for are often the hardest working people in the food industry, but also the least likely to receive national recognition. For this reason it’s important the judges get to hear about the real heroes, the inspirational people serving delicious and healthy food in a public/institutional setting.

There are thousands of cooks across Britain delivering fantastic food often working to tight budgets and inspiring others to follow their lead, so please help us spread the word and bring in nominations for these unsung heroes
cooking fantastic food. Cooks and caterers can also nominate themselves.

All nominators need to do is go to www.bbc.co.uk/foodawards from January 10th to midnight January 24th.
The best ideas that come through the judging process will be featured on BBC Radio 4’s The Food Programme and a special edition of the BBC Food & Farming Awards, also on Radio 4.

Over the years judges in this category have recognised people including the school dinner lady, writer and campaigner Jeanette Orrey, who went on to help thousands of school cooks across the UK; Jane Sen of the Bristol Cancer Help Centre was recognised for her ground-breaking approach to care and nutrition. Last year’s winner was Jo Ingleby, whose work in Bristol has led to hundreds of pre-school children having their first introduction to cooking and food skills.
Sheila Dillon, founder of the awards and presenter of Radio 4’s The Food Programme said: “In 2000 we wanted the awards to cast light on unsung heroes. They still do that, but what we now see is the awards actually transform economies and institutions. Prison caterer Al Crisci won in 2005 and went on to found the Clink Charity and transform prison training and inmates to pursue careers in food. The school cooks we’ve recognised over the years
have also gone on to inspire change in other schools across the UK.”

With 9 categories on offer, including Best Food Producer, Best Drinks Producer,Best Local Food Retailer, Best Food Market and Best Street Food/Takeaway, the judging panel are calling for nominations from the public in every part of the UK.
Once the judges have selected a shortlist for each of the categories, they visit each finalist in person. The eventual winners will be announced at the annual BBC Food & Farming Awards ceremony, to be held in Bristol on 29th April.
Shortly after, BBC Radio 4 will broadcast a programme featuring the winners and judges.

Article written by Michele Shirlow for Farm Week- 21st January 2016

Two cornerstone events for Year of Food and Drink are currently being finalised and will provide huge scope for local companies to grow sales.

The two events are the Food NI Food and Drink Pavilion at the annual RUAS show at Balmoral Park from 11-13 May and the BBC Good Food Show in the new Waterfront Hall extension from 14-16 October.

It’s likely that upwards of 100 local food and drink companies including many artisan enterprises will be showing and sampling products at Balmoral, which attracted around 100,000 visitors last year, clearly our most successful year to date.

Our Food and Drink Pavilion was a huge success with both visitors and local businesses in 2015. There was a tremendous buzz in the pavilion during the event and many thousands of visitors were introduced to quality and innovative food and drink from local producers. As a result of this success, I am confident that the upcoming event will set new records in terms of participating companies and visitors to the pavilion.

Once again the pavilion will feature an extensive programme of cookery demonstrations by leading chefs and using the best local produce. We have extensive international media visits planned to visit the food pavilion this year which is a great opportunity.

BBC Good Food Show, one of the biggest events in the UK food and drink calendar, will be staged in Northern Ireland for the very first time.

The organisers have a tremendous track record in staging such shows in England, Scotland and Wales. It’s great to see Northern Ireland now featuring in the schedule for an initial contract period of three years. It’s expected to attract around 10,000 visitors in October. I’d certainly hope to see a great many more visitors from Northern Ireland, the Republic of Ireland and other parts of the UK taking part in this important business event.
The show is also a consumer focused event. As is the case with our pavilion at Balmoral, BBC Good Show is consumer focused and designed to provide an ideal platform to highlight our award winning food and drink companies, place the spotlight on our talented chefs and celebrated restaurants, and spread the word about Northern Ireland as a great foodie destination. It’s an event that is designed to enable our companies to increase awareness of their products and to sell.

I am sure that local companies will get behind both events. TourismNI, DARD and InvestNI are certainly keen to ensure the success of the BBC Good Food Show because of its standing throughout the UK and indeed further afield.

The organisers also intend to market it extensively in the Republic to attract participants, buyers and visitors. It’s vitally important that our companies grasp the business opportunity provided by both Balmoral and the BBC Good Show.

Foodie hearts are already aflutter as the initial line-up will feature BBC chef James Martin, Bake-off’s Paul Hollywood and the Hairy Bikers. There will be plenty of local culinary talent to see at Balmoral too. So put these dates in your diary now.

The search is on to find farms willing to open their gates and fields to participate in Bank of Ireland Open Farm Weekend 2016. The event, in its fifth year, will coincide with the Northern Ireland Year of Food and Drink 2016 which is being co-ordinated by Tourism NI, supported by Food NI.

To begin the search for potential farm hosts, an event was held today for the Guild of Agricultural Journalists at a regular Open Farm venue Hillstown Farm Shop in Randalstown.

The Ulster Farmers’ Union led initiative, principally supported by the Bank of Ireland, has been running since 2012 and has attracted almost 60,000 people throughout that time. It has also made important strides in helping promote food education through a dedicated schools programme.

Bank of Ireland Open Farm Weekend Chairman and UFU Deputy President Barclay Bell said, “With 2016 designated as the Year of Food and Drink in Northern Ireland, we are looking for farmers to volunteer and help to tell their part of the food chain story to a wide and captive audience. This is an exciting time for our industry to really showcase our excellent produce and be part of this important celebration. From the small artisan outlets right up to the large scale producers, we want to hear from you if you would be interested in hosting this summer.

“In 2015, 21 farms opened their gates to the public and we would like to have a similar number participate in 2016 with a particular call to expand farm numbers in the west of the province, in the Tyrone and Fermanagh areas.”

Bank of Ireland UK Head of Agriculture NI William Thompson added, “We are delighted to continue our support of the Bank of Ireland Open Farm Weekend especially given the NI Year of Food and Drink 2016. The initiative is a great marketing opportunity for food producers or those with farm diversification projects to open their gates. Bank of Ireland Open Farm Weekend helps educate people about how their food is produced and highlights the value of the agriculture sector to Northern Ireland.”

Food NI Chairman and 2015 Open Farm Weekend host John Best encourages farmers and artisan producers alike to take part. “The range of food and drinks that our members are producing is more diverse than ever before. We have always had great raw ingredients but there is growing number of artisans who are really pushing boundaries.

“As part of the Year of Food and Drink, each month celebrates the diverse aspects of our agri-food industry. January’s theme is breakfast month and we were treated to a wonderful breakfast today at Hillstown Farm Shop, who are Food NI members and recipients of the Great Taste Awards.”

There is a full programme of training and support in place for the 2016 initiative and project managers are on hand throughout the year to offer advice and guidance to participating farmers. To register your interest email kcairns@ufuhq.com or call 028 9037 0222.

The 2016 Bank of Ireland Open Farm Weekend will run on Saturday 18th and Sunday 19th June. For more information, visit the website www.openfarmweekend.com, follow on Twitter @BOIopenfarm and like Open Farm Weekend on Facebook.