Northern Ireland Food Suppliers
In Northern Ireland, our food tastes just as nature intended. Lush pastureland, mild trade winds and producers who work to some of the highest standards in the world they all add up to superior food and drink. The "Northern Ireland - Good Food is in our Nature" campaign celebrates and promotes the high quality produce available locally in Northern Ireland, and which is exported all over the world.
Through our umbrella campaign we are connecting people to Northern Ireland as an excellent food producing region.
For more information on our campaign and our members please visit www.nigoodfood.com
Irish Gourmet is proud to be a member of the Good Food Is In Our Nature campaign, and below you will find information about our suppliers from Northern Ireland.
Ditty's Home Bakery - Co Derry, N.Ireland
2005 Tastiest Bakery in Northern Ireland Award Winner.
Robert Ditty is a third generation artisan baker whose success is based on the principles of artisan baking, innovation and by using only the finest ingredients. He supplies leading retailers including Fortnum and Mason and Sainsbury’s, and has already won a string of awards including Young Baker of the Year and The Guild of Fine Food Retailers Great Taste Awards Gold, Silver and Bronze.
"All our breads and rolls were still flour at 3am this morning," says a sign at his headquarters, which sums up his dedication to freshness and flavour and his commitment to what he describes as the last craft science.
Ditty preserves a long tradition of Irish baking with his unique hotplate (griddle) soda farls, breads and pancakes as well as baked brown bread varieties using soft white and strong brown flours, wheatmeal, bran and buttermilk. The secret ingredient in Ditty's porter cake is O'Hara's Celtic Stout, from a microbrewery in Carlow and other popular cakes are those made with marmalade and orange, lemon and ginger, or chocolate and black cherry. Their crunchy Irish oatcakes and black pepper and celery biscuits for cheese are sold in small specialist outlets.
Irwin’s Bakery - Armagh N Ireland
McCann's Cakes - A unique taste & flavour generated by generations of baking.
McCann's Bakery was founded in 1837 in the Co. Down town of Newry. Today their wide range of traditional Irish fruit cakes are available from Irwin's Bakery who continue to produce the range of speciality bread & cakes which are eaten and enjoyed all year round.
In the nineteenth century when poverty was so prevalent in Ireland, bread was the mainstay of the average Irish family's diet. A great treat in those days was the addition of dried fruit and eggs to make Irish Fruit Loaf, and from this our traditional Irish cakes have developed.
Cakes include Irish Porter Cake made with genuine Irish stout, and packed with sultanas, cherries, and orange and lemon zest, a moist cake rich in flavour and suitable for special occasions.
And McCann's Irish Whiskey Cake is made with a delicious blend of sultanas, cherries, oranges, lemons, apple, cinnamon and Black Bush Special Old Irish Whiskey. Bushmills has been distilling whiskey since 1609 and is the oldest distillery in the world.
McCann's Cream liqueur cake is made with finest fruits and St Brendan's Irish Cream Liqueur, a superb Irish Cream liqueur produced to the highest standards in the Northwest of Ireland.
Apple and Citrus cake, a rare blend of fruits, sultanas, cherries, oranges and lemons provides a distinctively crisp and tangy flavour. All of these cakes make ideal gift items. All McCann's cakes boast a shelf life of nine months.
Ristretto Coffee - Co Down, N Ireland
Ristretto Irish Coffee Arguably the FINEST Speciality Coffee. The team at Ristretto searched the coffee regions of the world to bring the finest selection of Arabica beans to their roastery in the heart of County Down Northern Ireland.
Indulge yourself with a famous estate coffee or experience the mystery of a small coffee farm high on the mountains in the far corners of the earth.
Enjoy the depth, the drama and the subtle array of flavours found in our unique Ristretto espresso blends.
Once you have experienced the taste of TRULY FRESH COFFEE you will never again settle for anything less!.
Farmers carefully harvest coffee on some of the highest and most remote mountain regions of the world. Having gone to all this trouble wouldn’t it be a waste if your cup of coffee only offered a fraction of the flavours these beans had to offer?
To guarantee freshness and optimum flavour Ristretto's coffee is dispatched within 24 hours of roasting.
Look for the ROASTING DATE stamped on every bag! – Demand Freshness!
All Ristretto coffees are meticulously hand roasted in small batches and personally sampled to ensure the highest quality and perfect consistency.
Johnson’s Irish Coffee - Antrim, N Ireland
When the Johnson family began roasting coffee in the early 1900s, neither the mechanical blender, the liquid cooled roaster, nor the foil-sealed packaging machine which ensure total freshness for ground coffee, had been invented!
Technology has improved enormously, yet the basic principles first employed are still very much in evidence, because the driving desire has not changed - the desire to produce coffee of true excellence founded on a passion for a real coffee drinking experience.
Now based in County Antrim, Northern Ireland, the Johnson family import only the highest grades of pure Arabica coffees from around the globe. The smoothness of Colombia, the rich bite of Kenya, the individuality of Mocha and Java, the extravagance of Blue Mountain... From their raw state, coffees are blended and roasted on a daily basis.
Fivemiletown Cheese - Tyrone, N Ireland
Fivemiletown Creamery is a farmer owned co-operative. For over a hundred years our master cheesemakers have been using the purest milk, from our herds that roam the Clogher Valley, to make our award winning cheeses.
Fivemiletown Creamery has won numerous awards across the board for all the cheeses in its range. Each attractively packaged cheese carries a written Farmer's and Cheesemaker's assurance, a testament to the proud heritage of each cheese produced.
Causeway Cheese - Ballymena, N Ireland
In Northern Ireland our waxed cheeses arrive in the shape of the stones at the Giants Causeway, Northern Ireland's premier tourist attraction. Colourfully wrapped and cut in a hexagonal shape, they have proven extremely popular as a gift for cheese lovers across the whole of Ireland and the UK.
Offbeat Bottling Co - Bangor, N Ireland
OffBeat Bottling Company in Bangor, Co Down has won a multitude of Great Taste Awards over the past decade. Providing Irish Gourmet with our customers’ perennial favourite, Extremely Orangey Marmelade. And also many of the alcoholic chutneys that are renowned for their originality and great taste across Ireland, and in stores such as Harrods and Fortnum and Mason's of London.
The Company was founded in 1994 by husband & wife team, Laura & Terry. They realised there was a gap in the market for superior, gourmet preserves that tasted the old fashioned home-made way. Natural, fresh and high in flavour. Today their products have won over a dozen medals at the Great Taste Awards, including the highly coveted Fortnum & Mason Reserve Supreme Champion for their extremely orangey marmalade.
Laura places enormous emphasis on the originality of their product line. Their extensive range of chutneys and jams have exciting twists which include dozens of fruit & flavour combinations such as strawberry & banana jam, gin & bitter lemon marmalade etc...
They also cater for the more 'traditional' palate with the Irish Range producing rich fruit combinations including Irish Stout, Irish Whiskey etc..
All products are additive free, colour & preservative free.
Blackthorn Foods - Co Down, N Ireland
Melting Pot Fudge is lovingly handmade by sisters Jennifer & Dorothy in their country kitchen in the heart of County Down. Made using only the best quality Irish butter and all natural ingredients, this fudge stands apart from the long life, mass produced fudge readily available today. A small taste will transport you back to the past when fudge tasted as it should - smooth, creamy and wonderfully buttery.
SD Bell & Co Ltd - Belfast, N Ireland
In 1887, SAMUEL DAVID BELL founded the grocery firm of S.D. Bell & Co Ltd., Belfast. Tea and coffee quickly became the mainstays of the Business, and by 1927 the Firm had expanded into larger premises on the corner of Ann Street and Victoria Street.
S.D. BELL'S name and reputation flourished during the first half of the twentieth century, and quickly became synonymous with the best tea and coffee available, while the wonderful aroma of freshly roasted coffee permeated Belfast's streets.
In 1973 Bell's moved to their suburban premises at Knock, which is their current Headquarters, and site of the popular 'Leaf & Berry' Coffee Bar. S.D.BELL'S teas and coffees are available at Knock, in St George's Market, and throughout Northern Ireland, in quality hotels, restaurants and shops.
Originally all tea was hand-plucked seasonally from the tea bushes and during processing was graded and sorted. Mechanisation has developed to the extent that over 90% of teas grown throughout the world are manufactured by a cut-tear-crush process known as CTC. They are the small, brown nutty-shaped type of teas. They are graded into sizes, as is the gold-tipped flaky, black-leaf tea, and it is the smaller leaf CTCs, Pekoe Fannings, (PF) and Pekoe Dust (PD) that constitute tea bags, the immersible sachets that constitute the largest share of the tea market today.
Good CTCs are widely used, and may constitute 50% or more of all packeted leaf teas. So it is a fallacy to assume that, to be good tea in strength and character it must be plucked and contain gold tip. It is an indication, but much CTC (i.e. without gold tip) is indeed good. However much of the constituent teas in bags, in a very competitive market is not of the best, and the buyer should choose carefully.
The CTC process ensures that the rich colour and strong aggressive flavour infuses very quickly, while teas processed in the Orthodox method give a gentler, more subtle flavour, and generally a lighter colour. S.D. Bells have always specialised in the Orthodox type, and will continue to do so.
Other Northern Ireland Companies Used By Irish Gourmet
Kestrel Foods - Armagh, N Ireland
Cottage Pride - Armagh, N Ireland
Corn Dolly Bakery - Newry, N Ireland
J Horner - Belfast, N Ireland
F Jones - Belfast, N Ireland
Strangford Lough Brewing Co - Co Down, N Ireland
