Great Taste, the world’s most coveted fine food and drink awards, which champions the very best in the industry, is now open for entry. Organised by the Guild of Fine Food and judged by hundreds of food experts, including chefs, buyers, retailers, restaurateurs, food critics and writers, Great Taste has blind-tasted over 90,000 products in the 21 years that is has been running. The unmistakable gold and black Great Taste logo with stars is a recognised stamp of excellence among retailers and consumers alike.

 

Members of the Guild of Fine Food will have exclusive access to submit their entries at a discounted rate during ‘Members’ Fortnight’, which runs from Monday 19 January to Sunday 1 February. Entry opens to all other food producers who supply the independent retail sector, large and small, on Monday 2 February and will close on Friday 27 February. Product entries are capped at 10,00​0 and the rigorous judging process to find the stars of 2015 will commence in March, with the results being announced during the summer.

 

Whether the product receives a 1-star, 2-star or 3-star accolade, Great Taste stars are highly respected seals of approval, bringing significant benefits to food and drink producers, including increased sales and brand awareness through the extensive consumer and trade promotion carried out by the Guild of Fine Food. What’s more, every entrant receives comments from the panel of expert judges, providing highly valuable feedback for market research and product refinement purposes.

 

“The Great Taste logo is an established and trusted mark; for producers it reflects their hard work and commitment to making superb tasting food and drink, and for consumers it is a recognisable, simple and clear logo that confirms they are buying the most outstanding products on the shelf,” explains John Farrand, managing director of the Guild of Fine Food and Great Taste organiser.

 

Last year’s Great Taste Supreme Champion was Snowflake Luxury Gelato’s Raspberry Sorbetto, made in London. Asad Khan from Snowflake Luxury Gelato, says; “Winning Supreme Champion has been a game changer for the business. It has allowed us to accelerate our growth plans and look into acquiring an additional production facility to meet the demands we have had since our Great Taste achievement. We have watched our sales go up in-store and it has been a very busy period for us.”

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Registration has now opened for next month’s ‘Focus on Food’ conference, which will put the spotlight on the importance of food to the tourism.

With Belfast having been named one of the world’s top six food destinations in ‘High Life’ magazine’s annual ‘Hot List’, the one day event – organized by Belfast City Council in partnership with the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development (DARD), through its Northern Ireland Regional Food Programme, and the Northern Ireland Tourist Board (NITB) – will take place at St George’s Market on Tuesday February 17.

According to the most recent edition of the Belfast Tourism Monitor, visitors spend an average of £60 per day on food during their stay in Belfast, resulting in an overall annual spend of more than £453m and a total economic impact of £553m.

The aim of the ‘Focus on Food’ conference is to see what more can be done to maximize the economic benefit of food tourism, not only for Belfast in particular but the region as a whole.  It will look at the long term development of food tourism in the city, and is designed to promote Belfast’s food tourism message; inspire the industry to collaborate and create new visitor experiences; engage producers, chefs and outlets together to better promote the food message to visitors; encourage the use of local produce in menus and enable those in the industry to share experiences, challenges and opportunities.

‘Focus on Food’ will be hosted by the renowned food writer Xanthe Clay, with keynote speakers including award-winning writer and TV presenter James McIntosh, Fia Gulliksson, official food ambassador for the Swedish government and CEO of ‘Food In Action’, and author Joe Warwick.

Other contributors will include hotelier James McGinn, entrepreneur Bill Wolsley, restaurateur Niall McKenna and award-winning producer Peter Hannan, as well as representatives from Tourism Ireland, the Northern Ireland Tourist Board and Food NI.

To register, and for further information, visit www.belfastcity.gov.uk/belfastfood.  Attendees can also keep up to date with developments on Twitter, by following @belfast_food or #belfastfocusonfood.

Burns Supper

Join us this year for The Cuan’s  celebrate the Scottish Legend Robbie Burns. Our invited guests Nadia and Paul Finlayson from Edinburgh  will lead all the traditional pomp and ceremony associated with a Burns Supper. Your ears will ring to the sound of the haggis being piped in by Michael  Magee. Enjoy a four-course meal featuring haggis, turnips and ‘tatties’ (alternative menu choices will be available).

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Wild Game Night

To mark the closing of the game season, we invite you to come and enjoy these very popular full flavored organic meats from protected sources.

Robert Croft, estate manager at Portavo, Co. Down, assures the quality of this seasonally available game.

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Valentine’s Weekend Special

Come to the idyllic and romantic setting of Strangford village and show your valentine the depth of your love with a delightful Dinner for two or Dinner B&B break at The Cuan. This year we are offering a third night free if you book for our special 2 Night Package (including the Valentine’s meal for Two) for only £99.00 pps.

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Wine & Dine

The return of an exceptionally popular event!

Our partnership with Jim Nicholson Wine, Crossgar is longstanding.  Kevin Devlin will return with a visiting wine sommelier  and their exciting new wine portfolio (details on the region to follow). They will guide you through an appreciation of the wines from 3.00 – 5.00pm then you can stretch your legs around the beautiful village of Strangford and return to dine at your leisure. Our special menu will be created around their wines, use your new-found knowledge to match your wines to your menu choice.

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From new blends to new branches, 2014 was a bumper year for the Ground Espresso Bars team. Investing significantly in enhancing the local independent coffee chain is paying off and owner Karen Gardiner takes us through one of their most successful years to date.

The past 12 months have been a bit of a whirlwind for the Ground team. We’ve moved forward on many fronts – investing significantly in increasing our footprint across Northern Ireland and successfully launching our first store in the Republic of Ireland.

Opening in Blanchardstown was the culmination of months of work with our partner Next plc, and I am delighted to say we have created 15 new jobs and brought a little bit of Ground to the southern market.

We have plans to further expand in the south over the next 18 months, but will never lose focus on our home market. We pride ourselves on being a truly local coffee house and will continue to invest in enhancing our position as Northern Ireland’s largest independent coffee chain.

In celebrating our 13th year we invested more than £100,000 in extensive refurbishment works in our concessions in Waterstones, Fountain Street, and Next, Donegall Place, to allow us to better serve our loyal customers.

2015 will see us move forward with our multimillion pound expansion plans with Next plc, where we have already confirmed three new sites in Newry, Newtownabbey and Enniskillen and we will finalise a further six locations across Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, creating more than 100 new jobs in the process.

Successful partnerships with two of the high street’s most recognised brands is a great coup for a small company like ours and our record of success allowed us to bid for and win the opportunity to partner with multi-national brand Tesco.

The final months of 2014 saw Ground selected as the coffee provider of choice for the newest and biggest Tesco Extra store in Northern Ireland, creating 10 jobs in the new Bridgewater Retail Park store at The Outlet in Banbridge store with significant investment in the 1,800sq ft. coffee shop.  This unit has been so successful that we are working with Tesco on other prime locations across NI for 2015 and beyond.

While it might sound like we’ve just been spending time opening new stores and expanding our footprint that isn’t the case. We know that our customers want more from us than just a simple coffee.

Our coffee houses meet the diverse needs of our customers, whether that’s new features including bench top charging points, additional seating and community tables, or the new improved kids’ ‘playground’ areas in some of our stores – we are able to meet the needs of families as well as the growing number of people who use our coffee shops as a place to conduct meetings, work and gather socially.

When we launched Ground in 2001, we made a commitment to provide the Northern Ireland public with fresh homemade produce as well as high quality, ethically sourced coffee.

This year, following 18 months of preparation including a number of trips to Honduras, Ethiopia and Sumatra and a number of tasting sessions to ensure a completely unique flavour, we launched our very own bespoke coffee blend, Purple Dragon.

Working directly with suppliers from Ethiopia, Honduras and Indonesia and adhering to strict Fairtrade standards, we’ve not only been able to deliver a quality product to our loyal customers but also ensure that all individuals, from labourers and farmers to exporters are treated fairly and ethically in all stages of coffee production.

The combination of ethics and taste isn’t just important in the Purple Dragon blend – these two values are at the heart of the Ground mission to provide a haven for customers where comfort, friendship, happiness, quality and ethics become synonymous with their name.

It’s always good to look back and take stock and one of the high points of a bumper year has to be the video we put together with customers and staff. This short video truly reflects the comfort, friendship and happiness that make every Ground café special and is something we are incredibly proud of.

Now with over 160 staff across 13 stand-alone stores and concessions and with big plans for 2015, we will continue to work hard to retain the Ground values that have made 2014 our most successful year to date.

Pictured: Karen and Darren Gardiner, Directors Ground Espresso Bars.