Local butchers O’Doherty’s set to serve up a royal feast for Hope for Youth

Posted on

Known for their high quality and diverse products served to the local community and beyond for over 45 years, award-winning O’Doherty’s meats, Enniskillen, will soon be serving up a meal fit for a duchess. On Wednesday 25th November, locally-raised specialty beef from O’Doherty’s will board a City Air Express plane for a star-studded affair, Speedo House of Lords v House of Commons Swim in aid of local charity Hope for Youth.

Now in its 27th year, the swim will include famous faces including Her Royal Highness the Duchess of Gloucester, chief patron of the charity, Ian Paisley Jr, Sport Minister Tracey Crouch MP, and a number of world-class UK swimmers, who will don their Speedos to take part in the gala event pitting swimmers from the House of Commons against the House of Lords. Following the swim and presentations, guests at the star-studded event will be treated to a top-notch menu featuring the unique slow-cooked beef dish supplied by The Meat Trades Journal’s 2015 Northern Ireland Butcher of the Year, O’Doherty’s.

All funds raised on the evening for Hope For Youth, will be put toward cross-community groups in Northern Ireland that will enhance the lives of young people aged 11-18. Projects supported by Hope For Youth NI have included: Lisnaskea Playground, Music Theatre For Youth NI, The Youth Lyric, Sport Changes Life – E Hoops, and the Northern Ireland Cancer Fund For Children, amongst others. The charity has been making a difference to young people’s lives for over 40 years with a range of events including the biennial charity swim, now in its 27th year.

Commenting on the upcoming dinner to be served at the prestigious Porchester Hall, London, Pat O’Doherty, owner, O’Doherty’s said, “We are honoured to be supplying the beef for the dinner at the House of Lords v House of Commons charity swim for Hope for Youth. Our beef represents the very best of locally-farmed Northern Irish meat, grass-fed on Ivan Morrison’s Farm, Maguiresbridge, and this high-profile dinner acts as a great platform to show off our unique product.

Hope for Youth Chairman, Noel Lamb added; “We are all looking forward to tasting the beef dish generously supplied by O’Doherty’s. This biennial event has gone from strength to strength and helps to raise much needed funds to enable Hope for Youth provide grant support to important cross community organisations throughout Northern Ireland, and through kind contributions of food and drink we are able to optimise the amount raised for the charity.”

For more information on Hope for Youth visit www.hopeforyouthni.com. To learn about O’Doherty’s speciality meats visit www.blackbacon.com.

Mount Charles Group named the UK’s fastest growing foodservice company

Posted on

The Mount Charles Group has topped the Foodservice Growth Report 2015, a list and league table for the fastest growing independent foodservice companies in the United Kingdom, prepared by AlixPartners and EP Business in Hospitality.

The report, now in its third year, assesses foodservice providers on their profits and accounts, measuring their growth rate over a period of three years and placed Mount Charles in the top spot with a compound profit growth of 32.5 percent from a turnover in excess of £25.5m.

A new entry on the list for 2015, Mount Charles placed first ahead of some of UK’s most established firms including Olive Catering Services, who were second on the list and CH & CO Catering in third.

The report also commended Mount Charles as a stellar new entrant that continues to set standards for customer service, and suggested that the company appears well placed to continue its growth trajectory in the coming years as a market leader in Northern Ireland.

Cathal Geoghegan, Managing Director of The Mount Charles Group said: “It is a real honour to be recognised in the Foodservice Growth report, and as a new entrant we couldn’t be happier to have topped the list.

“Being ranked as the UK’s fastest growing foodservice provider is a testament to the hard work of all of our employees who maintain the highest standards of service and continue to help us grow the business.

“It’s especially gratifying when you take into consideration the calibre of the competition and the fact that the report compares firms on a national scale.

“There are some established names on the list and it’s a highly competitive industry, as modern foodservice businesses are not only competing against each other, but they have to battle against high street brands as well.

“It is however a very rewarding sector to work in and although it maintains a somewhat low profile, it’s one that thousands of people come into contact with every day, whether it’s through food provision at their workplace, schools, healthcare facilities or other. The chances are that you come into contact with our services more often than you might think.

“For us, the goal now is to build on this success and continue to drive the business forward in all areas, not just food service and catering, and we will continually strive to improve and strengthen our offering.”

Headquartered in Belfast, the Mount Charles Group currently employs 1,800 people across the island of Ireland and Great Britain, providing a range of business support services including contract catering, cleaning, vending, retail and security services, to public and private sector clients.

Their ranking in the Foodservice Growth Report is the second national accolade the Mount Charles Group has received in recent weeks, as the firm also won the coveted Public Service Buildings Award at the 2015 Kimberley-Clark Professional Golden Service Cleaning Awards.

The award, seen as a hallmark for quality and excellence, is a benchmark for contract cleaning companies, and was presented for the quality of their work at the iconic Titanic Belfast.

Showcasing the best of Northern Ireland’s local produce!

Posted on

The hospitality sector has a key role to play during the series of activities planned to celebrate our superb food and drink in 2016. Our first Year of Food and Drink will be an immensely exciting showcase of the very best of everything produced here by our companies, both big and small and including the burgeoning artisan sector.

Our approach will be to work closely with the hospitality sector to ensure that local food and drink continues to be highlighted on menus across Northern Ireland. This will have positive benefits for all.

By raising the profile of local products within the hospitality sector we hope to boost the economy and continue to enhance the reputation of food from Northern Ireland. Food and drink, it’s worth bearing in mind, contributes around £5 billion to the economy.

We believe that the initiative will also provide a massive boost for our developing tourism industry and assist Tourism Northern Ireland as it seeks to drive tourism earnings to over £1 billion by 2020.

Interestingly, a recent survey found that 54 per cent of people who visit Ireland do so for the pubs. The study, carried out for the ‘Support Your Local’ campaign, found that visiting Irish pubs was the second most cited reason for coming to Ireland, just behind ‘culture and heritage’, for which 57 per cent of respondents said was the main reason.

Marketing firm iReach conducted the study, with a sample of 500 tourists from the USA, Germany, Canada, France and the UK, who visited or had plans to visit Ireland soon.

As well as excellent food, Northern Ireland now has a rapidly developing cluster of local producers of award winning craft beers, cider and distilleries producing Irish whiskey, gin and, mostly recently, a small batch potato vodka.

We’ve seen major investment in new restaurants; hotels and bars over the past few years….and more projects are planned. Our chefs are now regularly picking up prestigious awards in competitions in Britain and the Republic of Ireland.

Year of Food and drink is a tremendously important initiative that will showcase our best, the superb restaurants, hotels and bars and also the skills of our hugely talented chefs. It will be an opportunity for all sectors of the industry to pull together for the benefit of the entire community.

St Genevieve’s High School wins Mount Charles culinary challenge

Posted on

Teenagers Demi-Louise Maguire and Bronagh McHeading, both 15-year-old pupils at St Genevieve’s High School in Belfast, have been named the 2015 winners of the Kitchen Whizz Kids cookery contest, beating stiff competition from seven other schools in Northern Ireland.

The winning meal, which was created on a £7.50 budget, was a marinated chicken and cherry tomato chargrilled kebab served with couscous and homemade flatbread.

Kitchen Whizz kids is organised by the Mount Charles Group, one of Ireland’s largest business support services organisations, and is supported by Business in the Community. The highly competitive cooking competition aims to promote healthy eating and generate interest in the catering industry.

This year saw more than 100 pupils take part in the heats, before the best two from each school participated in the final, which was held at Abbey Community College in Monkstown and judged by Mount Charles Group Senior Development Culinary Chefs Marcus Lemon and Brian Quinn.

The schools in the final were – Abbey Community College (Newtownabbey); Aquinas Grammar School (Belfast); Ballymena Academy (Ballymena); De La Salle College (Belfast); Rathmore Grammar School (South Belfast); St Dominic’s High School (Belfast); St Genevieve’s High School (Belfast) and St Malachy’s College (Belfast).

Dervla Strong from Business in the Community’s Education Team explains: “We were delighted to be involved with the Mount Charles Kitchen Whizz Kids Competition again this year. The schools were given a brief to create a healthy, locally-sourced meal on a £7.50 budget in teams of two. Mount Charles’ chefs visited all schools and each school had to select a team to represent them in the final. The final was held in Abbey Community College where the teams had one hour to whip up their meals, before two of The Mount Charles Group’s most experienced chefs judged their efforts and named a winning pair.”

“The standard of cooking this year simply exceeded anything we’ve seen in this competition before. The flavours, the skill, the teamwork and the presentation from each of our finalists was just superb,” said Cathal Geoghegan, Managing Director of the Mount Charles Group.

A team from St Genevieve’s High School, Belfast has won the fourth annual Kitchen Whizz Kids cookery competition, beating stiff competition from seven other schools in Northern Ireland. Pictured L-R: St Genevieve’s High School pupil Bronagh McHeading, 15, Cathal Geoghegan, Managing Director of the Mount Charles Group, Fionnaula McAllister, Home Economics teacher at St Genevieve’s, Caitriona Lennox, Operations Manager of Contract Catering Services at the Mount Charles Group, Kieran Heading, Managing Director of Business in the Community and St Genevieve’s pupil Demi-Louise Maguire, 15. Kitchen Whizz kids is organised by the Mount Charles Group, one of Ireland’s largest business support services organisations, and is supported by Business in the Community. The highly competitive cooking competition aims to promote healthy eating and generate interest in the catering industry.
Pictured L-R: St Genevieve’s High School pupil Bronagh McHeading, 15, Cathal Geoghegan, Managing Director of the Mount Charles Group, Fionnaula McAllister, Home Economics teacher at St Genevieve’s, Caitriona Lennox, Operations Manager of Contract Catering Services at the Mount Charles Group, Kieran Heading, Managing Director of Business in the Community and St Genevieve’s pupil Demi-Louise Maguire, 15.

“What each of these teams have demonstrated is just how achievable it is to eat well on a budget – it just takes a bit of creativity and confidence to try new things.

“For us the competition is incredibly important on two levels. It allows us to use our expertise to give something back to the community and it creates an opportunity for young people to enhance and develop their skills, while developing a better understanding of what eating well really means. The competition is also about nurturing new talent and making young people aware of the career possibilities within the hospitality industry and the contribution they could make to it in the future,” he said.

Fionnuala McAllister, Home Economics teacher at St Genevieve’s High School added: “This was our first year of entering the competition and we came with no expectation of winning – we’re completely overwhelmed that we won, particularly given the other amazing entries we saw.

“I have to say though that it was very well deserved. Our team was completely committed to the challenge, practising over and over again in their own time to make sure their meal was perfect,” she said.

This challenge is just one example of how business can be a force for good and inspire its future workforce. If your business needs help to get involved in education, please e-mail emma.morrison@bitcni.org.uk or call (028) 9046 0606.

Food for thought!

Posted on

The eye catching achievements of our talented chefs are helping to enhance Northern Ireland’s reputation as a European centre of culinary excellence, a standing which is adding substantially to our appeal to tourists seeking a destination with a variety of attractions including great food. This is extremely important because research shows that upwards of a third of visitor spend is on food and drink. They expect to experience locally sourced food produced by people dedicated to excellent products with outstanding success.

What’s also extremely important is that our award winning chefs use our superb local ingredients. Skilled and creative chefs are helping to showcase by using the ingredients to create imaginative and original menus on a par with the best available elsewhere. Indeed, High Life, the highly regarded in-flight magazine of British Airways recently named Belfast as one of the best places in the world for good food.

The awards in major competitions and reviews in national newspapers and magazines show potential visitors that they can expect highly creative menus here with dishes using wholesome ingredients with safety and provenance.

Recent successes include three Belfast restaurants on the North Coast:

  • OX in Belfast winning the Menu of the Year Award in the Cateys, the ‘Oscars’ of the UK hospitality industry;
  • James Street South, also Belfast, being named regional winner in the Waitrose Good Food Guide’s Reader’s Restaurant of the Year;
  • Howard Street, in Belfast being acclaimed by one of London’s top food writers in the Guardian newspaper; and
  • Harry’s Shack in Portstewart winning a National Restaurant Award as the Best in Northern Ireland.

In addition, the premium quality and outstanding flavours of contemporary Northern Ireland cuisine were showcased in this year’s prestigious Irish Restaurant Awards. Indeed, it was a record year for Northern Ireland restaurants in this, the Irish hospitality industry’s most important competition.

Northern Ireland restaurants, which specialise in using ingredients from local suppliers, mostly artisan enterprises, won a record four of the top categories in the awards.

The awards, the biggest, brightest and best-ever, especially for Northern Ireland, are another significant boost for our local food and drink industry as we gear up for next year’s planned Year of Food and the year-long celebration of the very best of food and drink being produced, particularly within the dynamic artisan sector that includes dozens of companies which were extremely successful in this year’s UK Great Taste Awards.

The recognition for excellence being achieved by local restaurants supports the work of Tourism Northern Ireland in the drive to attract visitors from the Republic and other international markets. It shows that they are now able to find superb cuisine in restaurants specialising in local food and drink across Northern Ireland.

Over 30,000 nominations were received for restaurants, chefs, gastro pubs, hotel restaurants and restaurant managers in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland.

The Northern Ireland category winners were:

Best Gastro Pub in both Ireland and Ulster – The Poacher’s Pocket, Killnchy, Co Down

Best Newcomer in both Ireland and Ulster – Deanes EIPIC, Belfast

Best Wine Experience Kindly in both Ireland and Ulster – OX, Belfast

Best Restaurant Manager in Ireland -Saul McConnell of Deanes at Queens, Belfast

Best Restaurant in Ulster– Ox, Belfast

Best Chef in Ulster – Neven Maguire of MacNean House and Restaurant, Cavan

Best Hotel Restaurant in Ulster – Ardtara Country House, Derry

Best Casual Dining in Ulster – Graze, Belfast

Best Customer Service in Ulster – Church Street Restaurant, Derry

In addition to the awards, several Northern Irish products were featured in the gala menu for the dinner at the awards ceremony in Dublin. These were salmon from Keenan Seafoods in Belfast, which was cooked using Broighter Gold Rapeseed from Limavady and Red Hand Ale from Tyrone.

The all-Ireland cheeseboard featured Causeway speciality cheese with dulse that’s produced by Fivemiletown Creamery, now owned by Dale Farm, our biggest dairy co-operative, in Co. Tyrone.

Congratulations to all our wonderful chefs. Keep up the good work!

 

Awards keep rolling in for Northern Ireland’s dynamic food and drink industry

Posted on

Awards keep rolling in for Northern Ireland’s dynamic food and drink industry. Our companies, both large and small, have won a cluster of major national awards over the past few weeks.

At a time when other manufacturing sectors are under severe pressure food and drink companies here are winning recognition for excellent processes and products. The achievements are immensely encouraging as we look towards our Year of Food and Drink in 2016. I am sure that there’ll be further awards to celebrate then.

Moy Park, our biggest company and now the leading European poultry processor, for instance, was named Food Manufacture Company of the Year 2015 in last week’s Food Manufacturing Excellence Awards (FMEA), the ‘Oscars’ of the UK food and drink industry. The outstanding poultry business, Northern Ireland’s only £1 billion company, also lifted the category award as meat and poultry manufacturing company of the year. Moy Park now sell over £1.4 billion and employs 12,000 people at 14 processing sites and production facilities in Northern Ireland, England, France, the Netherlands and the Republic of Ireland.

And Moy Park wasn’t alone in carrying the baton for the Northern Ireland team. While it was the most successful, four smaller manufacturers were also shortlisted in the awards, now in their 15th year. They were Moira’s Hannan Meats, Mash Direct, Comber, Willowbrook Foods, Killinchy and Sydney Scott, Coleraine. They positioned Northern Ireland as the most successful region in the awards. Congratulations to Moy Park and the other local successes.

And congratulations are also due to Jack Dobson, joint managing director of Dungannon meat processor Dunbia, who was has named Industry Entrepreneur of the Year at the recent EY awards in Dublin. The annual EY Awards are regarded as the most important on the island of Ireland.

Jack Dobson masterminded the remarkable success story that is Dunbia with Jim, his brother and co-founder of the business that is now among the biggest and most successful meat processors in the UK and Ireland.

Dunbia is now Northern Ireland’s second biggest food business after the Brazilian owned Moy Park. Listed recently at four in Northern Ireland’s top exporters, Dunbia is Northern Ireland’s biggest beef processor with exports of £650 million to Europe, North America and the Far East. The company employs upwards of 4,000 people in Northern Ireland, the Republic of Ireland and Great Britain. It also produces lamb and pork.

Hannan Meats also added a further trophy by clinching a gold medal in the inaugural World Steak Challenge. The Moira company gained a prestigious gold standard award for its Glenarm Shorthorn beef that’s dry-aged in the world’s biggest Himalayan salt chamber. The medal is the latest in a series of major awards for the Northern Ireland company’s steak and other cuts. These have included a cluster of UK Great Taste Awards from the Guild of Fine Food as well as two major awards in the recent Blas na hEireann awards.

CoCouture, the Belfast artisan chocolate business run by Deirdre McCanny, picked up two medals in the prestigious Academy of Chocolate Awards 2015.These were for the ‘Best Dark Chocolate Flavoured Bar’ and its ‘Ginger and Lime 70% and Coffee and Cacao Nibs 95%’ bars.

Hughes Mushrooms in Dungannon has been recognised by top retailer Waitrose a range of innovative measures to reduce carbon.

Another much smaller business, Heavenly Tasty Organics in Augher village in Tyrone gained the top organic product in last week’s Boots Maternity and Infant Awards in Dublin for its unique juices for babies. What a great foundation on which to launch into Northern Ireland Year of Food and Drink 2016, and what a great platform to promote our food and drink story to the world.