Poultry people know that happy, healthy hens make eggscellent eggs with orange yolks that stand proud when cracked. The third-generation Springmount farmers of Ballygowan are no eggs-ception. Their birds are free to roam their fields deep in the heart of County Down with the sunshine on their backs or the soft rain on their feathers.
The eggs are sold from the farm gate and in local shops.
Springmount Farm supplies leading local Hospitality and Retail Businesses including La Mon Hotel , Salty Dog and Mill Brook Lodge Hotels. They also are sole suppliers to Avoca and French Village Restaurants in Belfast.
Tasty Wee Numbers Home Bakery is a traditional artisan bakery based in the heart of County Down. The emphasis is on traditional home baking using the highest quality ingredients. The business started out as Simon’s Celebration’s Cakes after having heard one too many “that cake is fantastic, you really should start your own business” comments to ignore. The business evolved and expanded throughout 2014 and started to supply to trade and private clients. Retail supply followed soon after along with an ever growing presence at farmers’ markets and similar events throughout Northern Ireland.
They cater for every diet and specialise in providing products for Coeliacs, those who have a gluten intolerance (or those who simply choose to eliminate gluten from their diet as a lifestyle choice) and also lactose, dairy, soya and egg intolerance. They can also create tasty sugar-free products for diabetics. As the business expanded into the trade supply sector it was decided that a new name was needed and, after some research and requests for suggestions, the name ‘Tasty Wee Numbers Home Bakery’ was born. Simon’s Celebration Cakes continues to live on and, in fact, thrives as a division of the company supplying cakes for any occasion (birthdays, christenings, anniversaries and weddings). Between the two they offer a broad range of products to the trade, retail and private sectors.
Simon says “I absolutely love baking and like nothing better than to create and produce something that puts a smile on people’s faces”. Follow them on Facebook/Twitter to get the latest information on upcoming events
If you love the food at the Old Post Office, you’ll be delighted to hear that you can take it home from their Pantry. It’s a gorgeous, cream-painted store on the site where they sell a great selection of freshly made salads, delicious pies, tarts, biscuits, gateaux, cakes, tray bakes and handmade chocolates.
The shelves are also groaning with delicious chutneys, crackers, biscuits and home-baked produce. Everything is sourced locally and prepared on the premises. They can cater for large parties, but there are also individual servings of their most popular dishes. We’re talking fish pies, salmon and asparagus quiche, lasagne, and pork, chicken and ham terrine. The birthday cakes are legendary as are their desserts like Banana and Caramel Flan and Lemon Meringue Pie.
It’s all fresh every day. Who needs to cook when you have this gem?
With an ever-expanding range of award-winning sauces, dressings and dips, PrepHouse has been helping busy people to Bring Flavour Home since 2012. In a world where convenience, choice and wholesome, hearty meals are more needed than ever before, this company’s dedication to creating flavour using ingredients from the best local producers like Clandeboye and Longmeadow Farm, has helped hundreds of thousands of home cooks make good food fast.
PrepHouse’s full range of ambient and chilled sauces, dressings and dips are designed to help people magic up a meal from store cupboard staples, or dress up hero ingredients for dinners that impress. The range also includes gluten free, vegan and vegetarian Great Taste and Blas na hEireann award winning options – including their Irish Seaweed Dressing which was voted the best dressing in the UK at the 2018 Q Awards – perfect for helping everyone around the table feel at home.
With an active New Product Development team working from the specially designed Innovation Kitchen in their BRC Food Certificate AA Grade manufacturing site in Crossgar, and an ever increasing list of stockists including Sainsbury, Henderson’s Spar, Musgrave Supervalu across NI, Aldi Ireland and over 1000 butchers and supermarkets across the UK and Ireland, Prephouse really is the home of hard-working flavour.
The Great Game Fairs of Ireland brand includes the quarterly seasonal Country Sports and Country Life magazine (www.countrysportsandcountrylife.com) and the All Ireland Irish Game Fair & Fine Food Festival at Shanes Castle, Antrim (www.irishgamefair.com) plus every other year, the ROI Irish Game & Country Fair.
The brand offers fine food producers a unique all Ireland promotional package which can include ‘face to face’ contact with over 50,000 consumers at the fairs plus promotion to 100,000 readers of the magazine and complimentary passes for potential stockists throughout Ireland. Special package rates for Food NI members.
The Echlinville Distillery in County Down is at the forefront of Ireland’s spirits renaissance. Echlinville became the first new distillery in Northern Ireland for more than 125 years when the first spirit trickled from its stills in August 2013.
Echlinville has since made a name for itself as the home of some of Ireland’s best known premium spirits including the iconic Dunville’s Irish Whiskey, Echlinville Single Estate Irish Pot Still Gin, Jawbox Gin and Bán Poitín, which have together won 28 global awards in less than six years.
A family owned farm distillery, Echlinville is one of only a handful of ‘field to glass’ distilleries in Ireland or the UK. All of their Echlinville Whiskey and Echlinville Gin is distilled from barley grown, harvested and floor malted on their distillery farm near the shores of Strangford Lough, where the rich soil, saline air and mild micro-climate create the perfect conditions for producing spirit with distinctive character and flavour.
The soul of any spirit is its connection to the place where it is made. Echlinville are proud of their roots in the Ards Peninsula, and that sense of place is the essence of their premium spirits. Their homegrown barley and locally foraged gin botanicals, including Strangford Lough seaweed and indigenous whin bush petals, give Echlinville’s spirits a true connection to the place where they are made.
The Echlinville team love to share their devotion to quality spirits with visitors from around the world. The Echlinville Tour & Tipple offers an insight into the workings of Northern Ireland’s only farm distillery – a guided tour of the beautiful Echlinville still house and whiskey maturation warehouse followed by two drinks from the distillery’s range of award winning whiskeys, gins, poitín or vodka. Private tours and bespoke group packages are also available on request.
