Dozens of Food NI members made up the vast majority of Great Taste Award winners 2023. Morelli’s Pistachio Swirl Ice Cream by Morelli Ice Cream was one of 9 3-star products won by Northern Ireland producers and Food NI members. Morelli’s also took 3 stars for their Clotted Cream Ice
Cream with Irish Black Butter. Maud’s Ice Cream got 3 stars for their Pistachio Ice Cream.

There were three stars for Hannan’s Koji and Buttermilk Pork Chops as well as Baronscourt Estate’s Wild Sika Venison Loin and French Rack. Ballyboley Dexter 28 day Dry-aged On the Bone Rump Steak also made the 3-star grade as did Whitewater Brewery/ Hinch Distillery’s Barrel Aged Stout.

Several members including Spadetown Brewery’s Po-Faced Pils got 2 stars as did Get Er Brewed Do You Wanna Funk Hop Forward IPA, Lacada’s Brewery’s Blue Pool, Basalt Distillery’s Giants Rock Basalt Gin, Thompson’s Our Favourite Everyday, Irish Breakfast, Scottish Blend and Punjana teas,
Portilla’s Sandona Coffee, Coney Island Coffee’s 200 hour Fermented Colombia, Forest Feast Whole Canadian Dried Cranberries, Granny Shaw’s Shut Yer Gob Irish Stout Toffee, Fairley’s Flavours Fiery
Reaper Hot Sauce, Burren Balsamics’ Armagh Bramley Apple Infused Balsamic Vinegar, Craic Foods Wasabi and Kombu Sea Salt, Hannan Meats’ Sugar Pit Bacon Rack, Sugar Pit Bacon Chop, Salt Aged Pancetta, Whole Belly Porchetta, Miso Sirloin and Steak and Ale Pie, Corndale Charcuterie Free
Range Fennel Salami, Linden Foods Kettyle Irish Foods Salt Moss Aged King Arthur Joint and Marrow Melt 200g Chubb , Carnbrooke Wagyu Ribeye Steak, Wagyu Cote de Boeuf and Wagyu Steak Burger,
Rooney’s Millbay Oysters, Ballyrashane Salted Butter, Ben’s Vanilla Delight Ice-Cream, Dukes Salt and Caramel Ice Cream and Draynes Farm Mango and Passionfruit Sorbet.

Food NI members who are 1-star winners include Get Er Brewed who won a total of 3 1-star awards for Pressure to Pick Italian Pilsner, Modern Love Pale Ale and Frankie and Eileen’s Gin.

Lakeland Dairies got 4 1 star awards for Ballyrashane Semi-Skimmed Milk and Whole Milk, Ballyrashane Buttermilk and Ballyrashane Double Cream.

MacIvor’s Cider who took two 1- star awards for Dry Irish and Medium Irish Ciders. Brewery winners include McCrackens’s (1 star) Premium Pilsner, Lacada Brewery’s East the Beast and Spadetown’s Ragin’ Red Ale. Moocha Kombucha’s Elderflower and Lemon and Lemon and Ginger got a star each, as did Punjana Ltd for Thompson’s Decaf, Suki Lemon and Ginger Tea and Portilla’s Comuna Café.

In Snacks, Burren Balsamics got a star each for Proper Digestive Biscuits, Burger Sauce, Black Garlic Balsamic Vinegar and Tarragon-infused White Condiment. Glens of Antrim Potatoes Shindig Crisps won a star each for four flavours- Irish Sea Salt and Vinegar, Mature Irish Cheddar and Sweet Onion, Sour Cream and Shamrock Ridged Crisps and Whiskey Smoked Bacon Ridged Crisps.

Kestrel Foods under their Forest Feast brand were successful with 1 stars for Slow Roasted Truffle and Pecorino Nut Mix and Preda Fair Trade Mango Slices and Nut Milk Choco Peanuts. L’Artisan Foods won a star for their Chicken and Broccoli Empanada as did Bertie’s Bakery for Wee Sodas and Sliced Wheaten and Madame Mac’s Coffee Macaron. 1 star for Springmount Farm Free Range Eggs!

Gold and Browne’s Gluten-Free Double Chocolate Brownie was awarded 1 star as did Granny Shaw’s “Shut Yer Gob” Treacle Fudge Toffee, En Place Foods Corndale Farm Nduja Ketchup and Isolt Chilli Paste, Blackfire Foods’ Bonfire Chipotle Sauce, Kennedy’s Dry-Cured Streaky Bacon, Corndale Charcuterie’s Wild Sika Venison Salami, Carnbrooke’s Wagyu Sirloin Steak, Linden Foods’ Kettyle Irish Foods Marrow Melt, Kettyle Irish Foods Salt Moss Aged Fillet, Kettyle Irish Foods Salt Moss Aged T- Bone, Ballyboley Pedigree Dexter 28 Day Dry Aged On the Bone Fillet Steak, Hannan Meats’ Koji Sirloin, Miso Pork Chop, Black Pudding with Bramley Apple, White Pudding, Chicken and Ham Pie and Gourmet Pork Sausage Roll Quails Fine Foods Pork Honey and Mustard Sausages, Baronscourt Estate Wild Sika Venison Burger, Lough Neagh Fisherman’s Co-Operative Lough Neagh Smoked Eel and Wild Lough Neagh Trout Fillet in a Garlic and Herb Marinade.

There were 1 star awards for Dundarave Estate’s Christmas Pudding, Abernethy Butter’s Truffle Butter, Glastry Farm’s Raspberry Ruffle Sorbet, Morelli’s Madagascan Vanilla Ice Cream, Dulce de Leche with Macadamia Nut Ice Cream, Clotted Cream with Amarena Cherry Ice Cream, Duke’s
Premium Ice Cream Chocolate Brownie and Honeycomb Flavours, Jam at the Doorstep’s Sticky Toffee Pudding and Betty’s Dragon Fruit Dairy Ice Cream.

Mash Direct Beer Battered Chips and Beer Battered Onion Rings got a star each, Creightons of Balmoral did for Curried Parsnip Soup, Mourne Dew Distillery for their Premium Irish Vodka and Blackthorn Foods for their Butter Fudge. Crawford’s Rock got a star each for Pickled Seaweed, Apple
Cider Vinegar with Mother and Seaweed and Salt Chocolate. Deli Lites was awarded a star for their vegan Beets and Spirulina Crunch Pot as did TS Foods for their Fresh Breadcrumbs. All 3-star winning products were tasted and judged again to crown the Golden Fork trophy winners
and the 2023 Supreme Champion – the highest accolade of all.

All will be announced at the Great Taste Golden Fork Ceremony on Monday 11 September 2023 at the Battersea Arts Centre, London.

Shoppers at Mexico City’s high-end El Palacio de Hierro department store are now able to experience the range of rich flavours of natural fruit-infused vinegars, relishes and jams developed by Burren Balsamics at Richhill in Co Armagh.

The new export business won by Burren Balsamics is the outcome of a ‘meet the buyer’ event in London last October during which Susie Hamilton Stubber, the Northern Ireland artisan company’s managing director, and Bob McDonald, development director, connected with buyers from El Palacio de Hierro, the upscale chain of department stores in Mexico. Following successful commercial conversations, Burren Balsamics, a UK Business and Trade export champion, has just fulfilled its first-ever order to the store in Mexico City. 

Burren Balsamics has now been invited to attend the opening of El Palacio de Hierro’s flagship store in Polanco, Mexico City on Thursday 3 rd  of August. The event will involve a press conference and dinner with attendance of El Palacio de Hierro directorates, His Majesty’s Ambassador to Mexico, media, influencers and Department for Business and Trade Mexico senior officers.  Founded in 1888, El Palacio is often described as the Harrods of Mexico. The stores provide an extensive range of luxury clothing, electrical goods and gourmet foods.

Susie Hamilton Stubber, founder and managing director of Burren Balsamics in 2014, a specialist in flavoured vinegars for chefs and home cooks, says: “We were thrilled to receive our first order from such a prestigious and influential as El Palacio del Hierro is and to be representing Northern Ireland in Mexico. We delighted to be working with the Department of Business in promoting British foods throughout Mexico. “It’s a marvellous opportunity for us to promote and sell our natural fruit infused vinegars, relishes and jams at Palacio and other outlets especially chefs in top hotels and restaurants across the country,” she adds.

Burren Balsamics, which has won a host of quality awards and exports worldwide, has a key role in helping the department to reach out to business, by sharing their exporting expertise with new and inexperienced exporters and promoting the benefits of exporting. 

The Department for Business and Trade’s Export Champion programme, allows successful exporters of all sizes to support their peers – other businesses – to develop their export potential. In November 2022, Secretary of State for Business and Trade Kemi Badenoch announced eight UK business leaders as Export Champions including Armagh’s Burren Balsamics. Between them, they represent a variety of key sectors in the economy and offer voluntarily support for exporting. Burren Balsamics is now following up its initial success from the ‘meet the buyer’ event in Mexico by supporting the DBT Food and Drink team is leading the UK Happening events in collaboration with the Palacio de Hierro store. One of Mexico’s leading retailers, it has outlets in Mexico City and a large footprint across Mexico’s largest provincial cities and is very well established in its luxury food and gourmet products.

The ‘UK Happening’ month-long promotional event is to celebrate 200 years of diplomatic relations between the UK and Mexico. It will promote UK food and drink brands including Burren Balsamics.to shoppers across Mexico. The kick-off event will take place on Thursday 3 rd August 2023 – the event will involve PR, Press, Media, social media, marketing, and attendees will include Head of Mission, Directors from Palacio de Hierro, movers and shakers from the gourmet and high end food and drinks industry. “Activations” will take place at Palacio were brands will offer tasting sessions for customers – Burren’s directors will be an integral part of these activities.

Katie Brown, Agriculture, Food and Drink Lead – Department for Business and Trade, Northern Ireland, adds: “The Department is delighted to see the exporting success that Burren Balsamics has had in recent months, specifically the company’s recent export win with Mexican department store chain, El Palacio de Hierro.

“The Department for Business and Trade’s free export support is available to businesses of all sizes, across the UK, including Northern Ireland. “In the coming months, we plan to host a number of events to support Northern Ireland food and drink producers enter the global marketplace, including a 2- day virtual meet the buyer event in September and an exploratory trade mission to Anuga Tradeshow in Germany, the biggest food show in Europe this year, in October. “Expressions of interest for both events are now open to all Northern Ireland food and drink producers, and we would encourage applications from small, artisan food producers who are ready to take their business to the global stage, adds Katie.

A major investment by hugely successful Long Meadow Cider in a new ‘Bramley Barn’ at Portadown in Co Armagh will boost its business from tour experiences and other events. The family farm has just created an impressive new visitor experience nestled in the heart of their orchard which produces its annually award-winning ciders, juices and apple cider vinegar.

“This is a very important investment by us to enhance the services we provide to visitors and also to other businesses and organisations seeking a purpose-built venue in a picturesque location in one of our apple orchards,” explains Catherine McKeever, who runs the enterprising company with husband Pat, son Peter and daughter Alanna.

“We needed a bespoke area within our family orchard as we are welcoming tours from home and abroad. We now have visitors from many parts of the world. They visit Long Meadow to hear about growing apples, including Irish Bramleys with their EU PGI status, and to enjoy our ciders and juices and also to experience our unique traditional Irish soda bread and apple pie,” adds Catherine.

The farm business has won a host of UK Great Taste and Blas na hEireann awards especially for its range of ciders. The new glass-fronted building offers spectacular views of the apple orchards and will shortly include a purpose-designed kitchen that will offer guests a range of locally-sourced foods and a place where they can also try their hand at making traditional soda bread.

The McKeever family at Long Meadow work closely with Tourism NI, Tourism Ireland, Visit Armagh, The Armagh Food Heartland and The Armagh, Banbridge and Craigavon Borough Council on a range of initiatives including the upcoming popular and annual Armagh Food and Cider Festival. The colourful weekend takes place from 7th – 10th September 2023, right in the heart of the Orchard County. Brimming with fine foods, foraged lunches, cider tasting, tours, talks and fiction amongst the apple-laden orchards. Combine all this with award winning ciders and the most stunning surroundings, a harvest season treat.

“We are already seeing a lot of interest in hiring out our new glass fronted Bramley Barn for all types of business meetings. There have also been initial approaches to hold weddings, as it’s a tremendous venue especially when the weather, of course, is favourable. Nevertheless, it is a very special, private, bespoke and immensely comfortable indoor facility for a range of events,” continues Catherine.

Long Meadow, in addition, has strengthened its export sales to France as a result of contacts in the nation which has a strong cider marking tradition. “We’ve been exporting our ciders to France for some considerable time,” Catherine says. “The latest approach from a distributor has resulted in our products on the shelves in Provence.” The company also sells its ciders in the Republic of Ireland.

A Food NI member, Long Meadow, located at the heart of Northern Ireland’s ‘Orchard County, is focused on driving sales of its ciders, juices and apple cider vinegar especially outside Northern Ireland. An integral part of this sharp focus is the extensive investment in the new Bramley Barn, an imaginative development funded entirely by the family enterprise that also celebrates the historic local apple variety.

The family launched the business to harvest the potential of their own apples which had originally been shipped to make cider outside Northern Ireland. Long Meadow has a rich heritage in apple growing stretching back three generations in county Armagh and has won significant business from hotels, delis, independent retailers, restaurants and bars for its premium quality craft ciders and apple juices.

The enterprising family grows and harvests apples from upwards of 85 acres, 30 of which are on the home farm. The hugely successful decision to diversify from growing apples into the production of cider, juices and apple cider vinegar followed extensive market research and substantial investment on the development of an innovative range of products and processes.

Long Meadow ciders and juices are processed exclusively using pure pressed apple juice. The company does not use concentrates, chemicals, or added water. Small batches are produced using a unique and slow fermentation process for even greater flavour.

As a result of its enterprise and ongoing investment in the business, Long Meadow is now a central player in our buoyant cider sector, the quality and taste of which have won acclaim from experts in Britain and further afield. In addition to its ciders and juices, Long Meadow has harnessed the colourful orchards to host successful public events such as a spectacular sound and lights show and only last year Cirque de Cider.

Cookstown cheddar cheese and cured meats from a Limavady pig farm are an award-winning combination for a cheeseboard at any time of the year, judging by the verdict of experts in a major international competition. Both are Food NI member companies.

Dale Farm, the producer of the Dromona branded cheese range at one of the most modern plants of its type in Europe, collected two golds and other silver and bronze awards at the prestigious International Cheese and Dairy Awards (ICDA) in England.

Dale Farm’s vintage and mature cheddars struck gold with the experts in the hugely influential awards. Dale Farm, Northern Ireland’s biggest farmers’ cooperative and a successful international exporter, sources fresh milk for its cheeses and other dairy products from around 1,300 farms here and in Great Britain. The company is best-known for Dromona branded butter and naturally matured cheese, ice cream and ice lollies. It also produces Mullin’s ice cream, which has been crafted in Kilrea from Irish milk and cream for almost 70 years. In addition, Dale Farm has created Spelga yoghurt, the local market leading brand of the dairy dessert Dale Farm’s range of Dromona cheeses are the most successful from Northern
Ireland at international competitions in Britain such as ICDA.

The company sees success at these awards as important marketing opportunities which support its existing significant presence in Great Britain, its most important marketplace outside Northern Ireland. It has sites across Britain and counts all the main supermarkets there among its regular customers. It has also exported cheese to Europe and further afield.

Also winning gold for its charcuterie at the event was Corndale Free Range Farm in Limavady. Corndale, a Northern Ireland market leader in a range of charcuterie meats, won gold for its free range pork nduja. The company picked up silvers for its smoked paprika lomo and air dried wild sika venison.

The awards are significant achievements for both local companies at what is the world’s biggest platform to champion world class producers of cheese and dairy products. More than 5,500 entries were received from dairy processors, both large and small, in Britain, Ireland and other parts of the world.

Winning one of these prestigious awards means being part of an elite group and a 125-year-old tradition of the very best in class in dairy processing. Success there usually brings high profile recognition by UK retailers and on the international stage as well as increased consumer sales. “Success at such an important global event provides high profile recognition from independents, retailers and food service companies especially in Britain, my most important external market,” says Alastair Crown, Corndale’s founder and managing director.   “Also significant is ICDA’s support for winners through its global marketing and social media campaign to increase consumer awareness and ultimately sales,” he adds. “It’s all about getting the products before key retail buyers in Scotland and being able to talk to them about how the charcuterie is produced.”

The ICDA recognition is the second major endorsement of the quality of Corndale’s charcuterie, which is produced from the farm’s herd of pedigree pigs, in as many months. Alastair effectively started the charcuterie sector in Northern Ireland and has continued to lead from the front especially in terms of innovative cured meats, several of which have also won UK Great Taste, Blas na hEireann acclaim and British Charcuterie awards.

The artisan business, which was established by Alastair in 2012, gained two golds at the influential Scottish Retail Food and Drink Awards (SRFDA) in Glasgow in May. The winning awards were fennel salami and venison salami. In addition, Corndale received a platinum award for the best UK food for its products in this year’s challenging competition.

Products from all over Scotland were recognised at the awards, with the absolute best seven, including Corndale, earning the coveted Platinum Award. Created to help get more of Scotland’s fantastic food and drink products onto more Scottish retail shelves, the SRFDAs are now in their third year. Opportunities were also provided to foods from other UK regions.

More than 40 expert judges from all disciplines judged hundreds of products over an intense month-long period. Bruce Langlands, the former head of food and drink at both Harrods and Selfridges, was chair of the Platinum judging panel. He says: “I was thrilled to once again be involved with the Scottish Retail Food & Drink Awards and it has been so encouraging to see that the high standards we have come to expect from the entries has been more than maintained. I have to say that we have tasted some absolutely outstanding products.

“I really believe that many of this year’s winners will go on to secure new listings in Scottish retail outlets and, when that happens, we can take pride in the small part we played in helping that happen,” he adds.