Award winning ice cream brand launches products in Sainsbury’s stores across Great Britain

Morelli’s Ice Cream, Ireland’s oldest ice cream producer, has announced its award-winning products will be available to customers across Great Britain thanks to an expansion of its partnership with Sainsbury’s.

The announcement follows the launch of Morelli’s partnership with Sainsbury’s in autumn 2023, which saw Morelli’s products stocked in freezers in all Sainsbury’s Northern Ireland stores. 

The developing partnership will see a further 120 Sainsbury’s stores stocking the Morelli’s Ice Cream 950ml take home tubs, which are available in two flavours – Double Cream Vanilla and Honeycomb.

“The Morelli’s team is so excited to make this announcement and continue our partnership with Sainsbury’s as we further our expansion into Great Britain,” said Daniela Morelli, Sales and Marketing Director at Morelli’s Ice Cream. “Sainsbury’s is one of retail’s most iconic names and we are pleased to continue developing our relationship with the team as we grow the distribution and availability of Morelli’s Ice Cream across the UK and Ireland.”

Morelli’s Ice Cream take home tubs are now available in over 120 Sainsbury’s stores in Great Britain including Crayford, Milton Keynes and Preston. 

Morelli’s Ice Cream, Ireland’s oldest ice cream producer, was established in 1911 by Peter Morelli. Since then, the brand has flourished and expanded. The company currently has five family-run outlets and eleven branded stores in Northern Ireland as well as supplying Tesco, Dunnes Stores and various independent retailers all across Ireland.

For more information about Morelli’s Ice Cream visit www.morellisices.com or on the brand’s social media – Facebook, Instagram and X.

Bertie’s Bakery, the award-winning family firm with 50 years of baking heritage, is expanding its relationship with Henderson Group through the rollout of an innovative new product line in over 80 Henderson Group stores across Northern Ireland.
The Magherafelt-headquartered bakery has experienced strong growth in sales since it began listing with Henderson Group, just over four years ago in March 2020.

The latest expansion of the bakery’s relationship with Henderson sees the introduction of
Bertie’s Bakery’s new high-protein rolls into Henderson Group-owned stores, a move that is
expected to see Bertie’s brand sales grow further due to strong consumer demand.
Brian McErlain who founded Bertie’s Bakery says: “Protein is one of the top food trends this
year due to many people wanting to reduce their carbohydrate intake and increase their intake of protein. And as consumer needs and wants evolve, we want to be at the forefront of that. Over 21 percent of the calorific content of our new rolls is protein, which allows them to be classified as high protein, and we expect them to be in strong demand when they go on sale”.

“As a local company, it has been fantastic to work with Henderson Group over the last four
years, making our products increasingly widely available to consumers across Northern Ireland. We are delighted to expand our offering with Henderson Group and are very grateful to them for their ongoing support and collaboration.”

Bertie’s Bakery’s wide range of products, which includes scones, buns and cakes is stocked
across 150 independent SPAR, EUROSPAR and ViVO stores in Northern Ireland in addition to
81 Henderson Retail stores.

Neal Kelly, Fresh Foods Director, Henderson Group, commented: “We’re proud to work
together with Brian and the team at Bertie’s Bakery to expand our offering of Bertie’s products in stores across Northern Ireland. This builds on a very successful relationship over the course of the last four years. Bertie’s is a local business with a long history in Northern Ireland and we are excited to be able to take this next step in our long-standing partnership by offering their new high protein rolls to Henderson customers.”

Food preparation sessions at the Food NI Food Pavilion are now one of the many highlights at the four-day event at the RUAS at Balmoral Park. They provide tremendous opportunities for home cooks in particular to sharpen their culinary skills and learn about new food and drink.

Several inspirational chefs, including Noel McMeel, the acclaimed executive head chef at the five-star Ebrington Hotel in Derry, will be offering opportunities to benefit from their expertise, experience and knowledge.

The Moy Park Theatre Kitchen, where visitors will find inspiration for quick and delicious chicken recipes, as well as new ways to spice up family mealtimes, will be running throughout the show.

Joining the Moy Park team will be another two theatre kitchens, all with busy programme for visitors and featuring interactive sessions with local producers and makers, as well as tastings from both much loved, and new food and drink brands. 

The Tesco Theatre Kitchen will also host the highly competitive Steak Competition on Thursday 16th May. The kitchen, in addition, will also host ‘Female Friday’, a day dedicated to celebrating female chefs, and food and drink producers from Northern Ireland.

New to the pavilion this year is the Talks & Tastings Stage, which will host over 20 producers, including several of our most successful artisans, over the four-day event, giving visitors a real insight into the makers and stories behind much loved and award winning food and drink, and promoting food and drink experiences in Northern Ireland.

A separate Drinks Area will be featured due to popular demand in celebration of excellent local beer, cider, gin and whiskey producers.

Opportunities to sample a wide range of local food and talk directly to their producers will also enable visitors to the show to include more produce in their meals at home. Some will be on group stands organised in collaboration with Food NI by local councils including Mid and East Antrim Food Network, Antrim and Newtownabbey, Armagh City, Banbridge and Craigavon, and Lisburn and Castlereagh City Councils.

Many of the hundreds of products from around 100 exhibitors have won national and international awards for quality and outstanding taste against competitors from other parts of the globe, demonstrating that our produce is genuinely world class. 

The local industry certainly deserves your support in the supermarkets, convenience stores, independent grocers, delis and farm shops across the province. Buying local food and drink, in fact, has never been easier.

Our Food Power of Good (www.nigoodfood.com), a promotional campaign created and launched by Food NI, highlighted the quality and variety of local food and drink, and the economic, environmental and health benefits of making local produce a shopping priority. Put simply: Buying more locally is good for everyone in Northern Ireland.           

Balmoral is Food NI’s most important event in a busy programme of activities organised by us especially for our members in food and drink and also for caterers through our Taste of Ulster operations that seek to help local restaurants, cafes and food-to-go providers develop business. It’s a sector currently in need of support from Government to ensure its very survival.

Organised by the small but dynamic Food NI team with the RUAS and our members, the extensive pavilion, now among the biggest and busiest of its kind at Balmoral, is designed to ensure the continuing success of food and drink, our single most important manufacturing industry, one which annually generates around £5 billion for the local economy, especially rural communities in which many of the companies, big and small, are located.

Upwards of 100,000 are employed by the entire food and farming industry. Many original foods owe their development and success to our enterprising farming community.

It’s a fact that many grocers, both large, including all the supermarket chains, and small in Britain and the Republic of Ireland now depend on produce from here

Another measure of the importance of the industry to the economy is indicated by the remarkable statistic showing that our food and drink is now enjoyed by families and individuals in around 80 nations. And many of the most successful exporters are smaller enterprises.

Just over a week now until the doors open on the Food NI Food and Drink Pavilion, one of the biggest features in the annual RUAS at Balmoral Park. The show, of course, is now firmly established as among the biggest and most successful events of its type in Europe thanks to the dedicated RUAS team. It’s certainly a show that we all look forward to in Food NI.

The opening of the huge food and drink pavilion will be the culmination of many months of dedicated and highly skilled work by the small (but mighty) team at Food NI to ensure a successful showcase of what is now our single biggest manufacturing industry and one which ships product to around 80 countries across the world.

The resilience of our food sector has been highlighted in recent years by global events such as covid and conflicts around the world, we really are lucky here in Northern Ireland to have such a great industry and so much local food and drink at home.

We’ll start planning for an even bigger Balmoral 2025 within weeks of the doors closing on this year’s event. It’s become a labour of love for the team, a dedication which merits support and recognition. Much is achieved annually from very limited resources. Thankfully we have support from DAERA, TourismNI, InvestNI, and several councils, as well as theatre kitchen sponsors Tesco and Moy Park. It’s a real team effort to support the industry.

Food and drink, I regret to say, hasn’t always received the credit it deserves in the ‘corridors of power’ at Stormont for being vital to life, as well as generating around £5 billion annually and more than 100,000 jobs for the local economy. And I am convinced the industry has significant scope for even faster growth – given greater resources and attention within Government.

I know that readers of Farm Week, a publication which has long showcased the achievements of the food and drink industry in its extensive coverage of farming issues and successes here. will spend time in the pavilion and encourage their family and friends to do the same.

I am convinced that visitors to the showcase will be amazed by the variety of food and drink now being produced locally and by the willingness of producers to talk about their work and achievements. We have over 100 food and drink exhibitors, including 30 first timers. Balmoral is simply the best opportunity to learn about our vast array of food and drink and to find out how these are being produced by talented and highly skilled producers.

We all hope visitors to the pavilion will be encouraged by everything they see and learn about in the pavilion to give priority to locally produced food and drink in the supermarkets, convenience stores and independent grocers and off-licenses across Northern Ireland.

With upwards of 100 food and drink companies, there will also be over 80 buyers in attendance from multiple retailers, speciality stores, and farm shops. The majority of the exhibiting companies are already selling into Great Britain, the Republic of Ireland and some even further afield. White’s Oats for example sells to 80 countries around the world, and there are emerging exporters such as Burren Balsamic and Irish Black Butter. The teams of buyers from Britain and the Republic, brought in by InvestNI, will be seeking new taste ideas for shoppers, And they’ll find plenty of ideas in the pavilion, they always have done in the past.

There’ll be a special section highlighting the successes of our distilleries now producing multi-award-winning whiskeys, gins, vodka and poitin. Northern Ireland also has a flourishing non-alcoholic sector that includes Kombucha, minerals, apple juices, teas and coffees.

Another important aspect of the pavilion drawn together by our team are the culinary kitchens supported by major companies such as Moy Park and Tesco and showcasing many of our most talented chefs.

These sessions have always drawn many thousands of visitors keen on cooking tips and eager to sample some of the dishes created by the chefs of the calibre of Noel McMeel of Derry’s Ebrington Hotel and Spa, and Lottie Noren od Belfast’s EDO. The culinary sessions will offer much food for thought and taste again this year. Again, they will feature locally produced food and drink, demonstrating how best to use local variety, quality and innovation to create standout dishes.

TourismNI will also have an experience stage featuring local food and drink experiences this year, such as their Embrace a Giant Spirits Trail, local cookery schools, and food tours across Northern Ireland.

There really will be something tasty for everyone in the pavilion to eat, drink and experience next week…

Millions of UK foodies will learn from celebrity chef James Martin how to create a delicious frangipane tart at home using Irish Black Butter from Portrush, Co Antrim as a key ingredient.

The black butter, developed by local entrepreneur Alastair Bell from Armagh Bramley apples, treacle and spices, will be showcased in a recipe in James Martin’s Saturday Morning cookery programme as part of the chef’s ongoing focus on smaller food producers. The company is a Food NI member.

The popular programme is filmed at Martin’s home and features “inspirational recipes for the weekend” in a relaxed setting. It’s a popular combination of “brilliant cooking hints and tips and celebrity guests” such as other respected chefs Richard Corrigan and Nick Nairn, both of whom feature on today’s ITV/UTV show.

An excited Alastair continues: “I was thrilled to be approached by a member of the team to tell the story of Irish Black Butter on such an influential UK foodie show. I had no hesitation in accepting.

“The next stage was to brief a researcher about the product,” he says. “This led to a ‘down the line’ television chat with James about myself and the product. It was good too to see other celebrity chefs and influencers Nick Nairn and Richard Corrigan being involved.

“I am hoping the presentation and the delicious frangipane tart will help accelerate sales in Britain, an important market for me. I supply delis and other grocers there and can also provide products to viewers through my digital shop,” adds Alistair.

The tart is the latest application of Alastair’s multi-award-winning black butter as an ingredient. It has already featured in Morelli’s ice cream from Coleraine, a yoghurt from Clandeboye in Bangor and as a glazing for ham from Connolly’s in the Republic.

The leading chefs on the Martin’s new show share their favourite dishes and viewers are beamed into the kitchen for the recipes and to get their culinary questions answered!

Rademon Estate Distillery in Crossgar, a Food NI member,  has launched three new Irish whiskeys ahead of Whiskey Live in Dublin this weekend.

The new whiskeys were distilled, matured and bottled at the company, which was founded by husband and wife team David and Fiona Boyd-Armstrong, the first new distillery in Northern Ireland in over 100 years to release its own whiskey.

The first new expression is the Shortcross 7-year-old Cognac and Orange Liqueur Cask Single Malt Irish Whiskey, a whiskey whose journey began in early 2016 when the distillery secured its first batch of peated malted barley. This malted barley was then mashed, brewed and double distilled on the distillery’s copper pot stills.

Rademon is the first distillery in Northern Ireland to produce peated Irish whiskey in over two generations. Director of Distilling and Blending David Boyd-Armstrong describes the journey to get to that point as an adventure.

“When we first approached our malt suppliers with a request for peated malt they each in turn told us that we were crazy, that’s not what you want to be doing, and that no one wants peated or smoky Irish whiskey. Of course, the irony now is that peated or smoky Irish whiskey is one of the hottest areas of the category,” he says.

Distilling the peated malted barley was one thing but then David wanted to use a cask no one had used before in the Irish Whiskey industry

“Speaking to several of the cooperages that we use we told them that we were seeking a cask type that would be distinctive and unique, and while they suggested several different types I noticed something that they hadn’t suggested which was an ex-Cognac & Orange Liqueur Cask. Instinctively, I knew this could work really well, and in my mind, I had this concept of a smoky chocolate orange style whiskey.”

As an industry and category first this truly unique expression is described as having tasting notes of orange blossom, fresh mint and tropical fruits while walking through a summer garden. The palate leads with orange notes, as the malt makes an appearance. Milk chocolate combines with orange and mint, as the smoke shines. Sweet smoke and chocolate orange combine, giving a long rich and oily finish with hints leather coming through.

Limited to less than 1,000 bottles annually this expression is bottled at 70cl / 46%abv. RRP £65.00GBP / €75.00

Launching alongside the above whiskey is a second new expression. The second new Shortcross 5-year-old Distiller’s Duo Irish Whiskey, blends Shortcross Single Malt and Shortcross Single Pot Still Irish whiskey’s together to create a blend that show cases the distillery’s character. The new whiskey has been aged in a combination of ex-bourbon and virgin American Oak (Quercus Alba) casks.

David describes the journey to create this expression “Crafting the Distiller’s Duo has been a real testament to the quality of the Irish Whiskey we produce here at Rademon Estate Distillery.

“We always look to see how we can take our Irish Whiskey and create something truly unique, and by combining our Single Malt and Single Pot Still Irish Whiskey’s together we are able to amplify the favours and aromas of the malt and combine the with the spice and lush mouthfeel of the pot still to create a whiskey that we believe showcases our distillery character in the finest way possible.

“Uniquely this is also the first time that this blend has been created where both whiskey’s have been distilled and matured at the same distillery.”

The Shortcross 5-year-old Distiller’s Duo Irish whiskey tasting notes are described as: “A rich and fruit nose that is reminiscent of caramelised toffee apples, the palate leads with milk chocolate and sweet cereal notes from the malt. Over time these open up to reveal fresh hints of green apple and cola cubes, with a decadent and mouth coating finish with chewy pot still spices and lingering notes of red fruits, linseed and tobacco leaf.

This one is bottled at 70cl / 46%abv. RRP £55.00GBP / €55.00