Food NI member, Finnebrogue in Downpatrick, Northern Ireland’s highly innovative and successful food manufacturer, has won a prestigious Grocer Gold Award.

The local company was named Supplier Employer of the Year 2024 at a gala ceremony in London.

The Grocer Gold Awards is the blue riband event of the grocery retail and wholesale sector in the UK. It is hosted and produced by The Grocer, the multi award-winning bible of the trade.

It is owned by William Reed, a UK-based publishing, events , conferences, exhibitions and market research business with offices in the UK, US and Singapore.

In addition to these and other awards, The Grocer produces a weekly magazine, daily website and newsletters, as well as webinars and conferences.

Finnebrogue is now one of the UK’S leading food producers. It produces delicious, nutritious and sustainable food from four state-of-facilities in County Down. The company is renowned for its Naked range of chemical-free foods.

An Irish wheaten loaf, long a mainstay of homes, restaurants and hotels across the island of Ireland, has been named ‘The Taste of the North West of Northern Ireland. But the wheaten developed by chef/entrepreneur John Crowe is a loaf with a difference.

John, the owner of Carrick Foods in Londonderry picked up the title at the recent North West Business Awards, for the loaf, sometimes known as a brown soda, which includes among its ingredients flat oysters from the River Foyle near Northern Ireland’s second city. The company is a FoodNI member.

John’s Stout City Loaf includes the distinctive Foyster’s Stout that’s brewed by Wall City Brewery in Derry. The stout that’s also filtered from oyster shells is popular across the North West.

The loaf is one of the signature products of John’s Carrick Foods – the other is a cured local salmon with lemon and dill – a small business that John started while he continues to lecture and mentor culinary students at Derry’s North West Regional College.

A much travelled and vastly experienced chef, John has won widespread acclaim for his business and especially the award-winning Stout City Loaf, a two-star winner in last year’s Great Taste Awards.

Two Food NI member companies – Moy Park in Craigavon, Co Armagh and
ABP Linden in Dungannon, Co Tyrone – have won major awards in the annual
Food Management Today Food Industry Awards.

Moy Park, Northern Ireland’s biggest food company and a UK leader in poultry
products, gained the prestigious UK Manufacturer of the Year title for 2024.
ABP Linden, a major producer of innovative dishes, gained the key Best New
Product Development title in collaboration with M&S Food for a luxury Wagyu
Rump Steak with Mustard and Bone Marrow Butter product developed by the
team at Craigavon.

The awards, the most important in the food processing industry, featured
presentations to a range of 2024 award-winning meat sector companies and
people, with lunchtime guests celebrating the success of the industry in London
The awards highlight both service and quality products from a range of different
food production, manufacturing and retailing sectors.

Michelin star chef and TV presenter Michel Roux Jr took to the stage to host
this year’s awards at the Royal Garden Hotel in Kensington, London.

Catherine McKeever of Long Meadow Cider in Loughgall was “thrilled and
immensely encouraged” when CIE Tours named the Armagh cider producer in
its prestigious annual Awards for Excellence last year.

Lough Meadow Cider is a multi-award-winning family business that grows its
own apples for a range of premium ciders and has also invested substantially in
guided tours of its orchards and processing operation at Loughgall. CIE and
other international and local tour operators now include Long Meadow in their
annual programmes in Northern Ireland.

Catherine continues: “We regularly host visitors from across the world and
especially from the US and Canada to our orchards and our unique Bramley
Barn event space on the farm. Tours of our orchards are now a very important
part of our business. We are always examining ways to make visits to our
facility a really fascinating experience.

“Events have included tour briefings, lunches, corporate meetings, comedy
nights, music sessions and even weddings! The treats for tour visitors include
our own apple tart and guidance on how to bake traditional Northern Irish soda
bread baked on a griddle,” adds Catherine.

The CIE awards celebrate the diversity and richness of experiences offered by
Irish tourism at its annual Awards of Excellence. The awards were first
launched in 1990 and are presented based on post-stay feedback received
from nearly 20,000 customers surveyed throughout 2022.  

Catherine runs the business with husband Pat, the experienced apple farmer,
son Peter and other members of the family. The small business, a FoodNI
member, has won a host of UK Great Taste Awards and Blas na hEireann
Awards for its premium ciders and juices.

Long Meadow supplies retailers across the island of Ireland and was most
recently included in Lidl’s Kickstart programme for smaller enterprises. The
Medium and Blossom Burst ciders will be on the shelves across 220 Lidl stores
from 19 th September 2024 while stocks last.

An artisan enterprise in Armagh has been named a ‘Global Honey Star’ in an
international festival in London.

Marshall Beekeeping, a small business owned and run by Christine Marshall,
30, in Markethill, won a gold medal and the Honey Star designation in the
International Honey Awards, a prestigious competition which drew entrants from
across the globe.

Christine, who started the business in 2019 on the family dairy farm, was
understandably delighted to have won international acclaim for her honey at the
event. “It’s marvellous recognition and endorsement of the quality and taste of
my honey,” she says.

“What the competition does is to inform honey-growers, honey producers,
beekeepers, processors, and retailers, who distribute their standardized
products legally, to preserve and ameliorate the quality of their branded
products by promoting the highest quality of honey products,” she adds.
A panel of expert judges sampled hundreds of different honeys from producers
in the Alps and countries such as Turkey, Cambodia, Greece, Britain and New
Zealand.

Christine bought her first two hives in June of 2019 and has continued to grow
hive numbers with the goal of growing sustainably over the coming years. Her
aim is to become Northern Ireland’s largest honey provider, making local honey
and beeswax products available to all. She also has hives at Tandragee and
Newtownhamilton in her developing network of over 50.

She also produces flavoured and hot honeys, the latter featuring chilli.
In 2022, she started selling beeswax candles, honey-infused chocolates, honey
tablet and fudge to a network of local shops, food markets and other producers
such as Dolci Delizie chocolates in Banbridge and Granny Shaw’s Fudge in
Ballymena.

She is keen to collaborate with other artisan producers. Christine’s honey, for
instance, is used in Symphonia Gin liqueur in Pomeroy.

It’s no secret that food here is second to none, with some of the best local
produce, including honey, a nutrient-packed superfood with far-reaching
benefits, particularly for those battling seasonal allergies.

Gourmet entrepreneur Kieran Sloan, owner of the renowned Sawers deli, has taken inspiration from the famed Belfast Black Taxis to create a tasty stacked sandwich for local and interational diners.

Aided by son Mark, who runs the deli’s popular kitchen and lunch menu, Kieran has collaborated with Alastair Bell of  the multi-award-winning Irish Black Butter sweet/savoury sauce from Portrush, a FoodNI member, in the unique Belfast Black Taxi, a stacked flatbread that’s proving an immensely popular new taste for the city.

The new flatbread sandwich is the latest in a series of quirky taste experiences created by Mark and his team of three at the famous deli,  a treasure store of local food and soft drinks which has become a magnet for locals and tourists.

Other taste delights include Belfast Buster, Belfast Melter and Belfast Alligator. The Alligator is made from Armagh BBQ beef, mature Irish cheddar, rocket salad, red onions, spicy chipotle sauce on a cheese and onion ciabatta bread.

“We like to come up with different tastes with colourful names from mostly locally sourced foods,” says Mark. “Our new Belfast Black Taxi, for example, is a flatbread from Yellor Door in Portadown that’s a double decker stack with pulled Armagh roast beef, local bacon, relish, jalapeno peppers, mature Irish cheddar on a bed of rocket and Irish Black Butter sauce, of course.It’s a mind blowing taste experience,” he adds. It’s certainly the most colourful and interesting of local lunch menus.

The deli,  a popular lunch venue,  offers a spectacular range of flatbreads, ciabattas, and hot wraps which many enjoy on the terrace outside the iconic deli, a winner of a host of food awards for innovation, or takeaway to savour at work or at home.

The kitchen and exotic menu is an outcome of Kieran’s extensive investment in the shop and customer services.

He decided to expand in response to a growth in demand for new food from changes in eating habits.