The Heron family have owned the Cookie Jar in Newcastle since 1965. James Heron’s grandparents had a grocery shop and his Granny made her famous Wheaten bread to sell in the shop. Granny was a talented baker and the bakery side of things grew over the years which lead to the creation of the Cookie Jar home bakery, famous for wheaten bread. James’ father then ran the business for more than 30 years and now it is James’ turn. He trained at Loughry College and the Glasgow College of Food Technology.
The Cookie Jar does a full range of traditional Irish breads and pastries, and an ever-changing range of treat items. They sell their products in their own shops (there are two in Newcastle and one in Kilkeel) and they supply wholesale bread items to various local supermarkets.
Nestled in the Craigantlet Hills, shopping at this country store is a million miles away from a trip to your local big-name supermarket. The stuff they sell here doesn’t have food miles, it has food metres. The McKees rear their own beef and pork and they grow their own vegetables. The farm has been in their family’s hands since 1922. Nowadays they employ 15 people in the country store.
The vast majority of the rest of their stock is local too. We’re talking ribeye steak, malteser squares, bannocks, double cream, honey lemon chicken, carrots, lemon curd, liquid chicken stock and black pudding sausages. Sounds like a ingredients list for a Masterchef invention test! You can get all of these and much, much more.
They want you to enjoy the flavour and experience of local produce without the hassle. Don’t forget to grab a bite in the café. It’s the law round these parts.
We all love Mash Direct’s award – winning mashes and vegetable sides and now you can sample them wherever you see the Mash Direct Bus, which, also serves up delicious bangers and mash meals with a choice of yummy Mash Direct vegetables on the side. Mash Direct select older heritage varieties of vegetables for taste rather than appearance. The vegetables are steam cooked to retain nutrients and flavour, gently prepared and packaged on the farm in Comber, County Down.
Mash Direct products are 100% gluten free, do not contain any artificial colourings or preservatives and are suitable for microwave and oven heating. The mighty Mash Bus can be found across Northern Ireland at store openings, events and festivals. Don’t worry about not being able to find it, we reckon the colourful double decker can be seen from space! Make sure to check out Mash Direct’s website (www.mashdirect.com) and social media pages to find out more about what the mighty Mash Bus has been up to and where it plans to visit next. You won’t want to miss it!
Peter McErlean’s Chip Shop beside his Cuan Guest Inn in Strangford is a tourist attraction in its own right.
Anne Marie Kearney is one of the most experienced fish fryers in County Down, so you just know that batter will perfectly complement the flaky morsels of fish inside.
Naturally the chips are proper too.
Check out the mural done by Bill Gatt. It’s now part of the architectural heritage of the building and is great to look at while you’re waiting for your delicious order.
Anything that can be baked on a griddle, the multi Great Taste Award-winning Mark Douglas does it. From soda farls to potato and apple cakes to fluffy pancakes, customers are wolfing them down as fast as he can make them. None of them need yeast, so all he has to do is mix the ingredients and he’s good to go. This Krazi Baker bakes at markets across Northern Ireland and beyond.
He turns up with his ready-made stall and cranks into action. He came up with the ideas after visiting scores of markets on city breaks over the years. He saw bread being brought into markets and wondered why it couldn’t be made on site, so now he does!
His range is expanding all the time. He does soda farls, wheaten farls, treacle farls, apple and cinnamon pancakes, plain pancakes, potato bread, and potato and apple bread. He’s thinking vegetable and cheese fillings next. Can’t wait.
Current markets include Newtownards Market, Conway Square every Saturday, Comber Market the first Thursday in the month and Carrickfergus market on the other Thursdays.
Glastry farm has been proudly supplying its growing customer base with its ever-increasing range of luxury dairy based ice cream as well as offering lower sugar vegan sorbets to match their customers’ requirements.
Fifth generation farmer Will and his family started producing ice cream in 2007 as they could see a niche market where there are customers seeking something different and special to enjoy at home straight out of the freezer. Will enlisted his son Gareth with his pedigree dairy herd of cattle to combine high quality natural ingredients with farm fresh milk, and this winning formula has not changed since its inception as the site is completely vegetarian as well as proudly egg and nut free to cater for as many people in Northern Ireland as possible.
More recently a new range of lesser sugar vegan sorbets have been masterfully created. These flavours cater for the many customers who have frequently enjoyed their ice cream, but have asked Will for something that’s just as enjoyable to eat and environmentally friendly. Their continuous focus on detail to match there ever changing customer requirements have been most recently rewarded with a double gold award for their raspberry ruffle sorbet by Blas na hEireann Irish food awards 2019, this award comes on top of their Double Great taste award for their Ling heather honey ice cream that was described by the judges as “just the right amount of sweetness and quality, WOW this is super-duper ice cream”! at the 2015 Great Taste Awards.
