‘Delicious’ listing for two Northern Irish companies
Two Northern Ireland food processors have reached the final stage of the first Delicious Produce Awards, a competition for British products and produce run by the national food magazine.
The shortlisted companies are Cavanagh Free Range Eggs of Newtownbutler, county Fermanagh and Passion Preserved, a producer of savoury relishes from Lisburn in county Antrim. Passion Preserved was shortlisted for Indian Inspired Tomatoes,
The new awards celebrate outstanding flavour, texture, aroma and visual appeal as well as expertise, craftsmanship and good farming practices and husbandry and sound business practice, including fair pricing
Cavanagh Free Range Eggs is owned by farmers John and Eileen Hal whol built their first free-range hen house in 2001, after moving to Cavanagh in County Fermanagh the previous year. This soon accommodated their first flock of Lohmann Brown hens, and over the next 10 years three more houses were built and filled with laying hens.
Providing the best possible environment for their animals is key to John and Eileen, and the family’s farm is now home to 42,000 hens that are free to roam the countryside. They are separated into five flocks, which are rotated to produce a variety of egg sizes throughout the year with consistent quality. The hens produce about 12 million eggs every year. The team say, “Our policy is quality before quantity”, and the birds’ lifestyle yields a tasty egg with high nutritional value.
With growing demand, the family business launched the Cavanagh Free Range Eggs brand in 2012 and opened their own packing centre, enabling all grading, boxing and marketing to take place on site. The company is proud to be entirely traceable and transparent, and participates in an Open Farm Weekend.
Cavanagh Free Range Eggs, recently listed by ASDA Northern Ireland is SALSA accredited (Safe and Local Supplier Approval). Patrons include The Merchant Hotel, Belfast and Lough Erne Golf Resort, Enniskillen, where the eggs were served at the 2013 G8 Summit. The eggs are also available from local stores to anyone who appreciates that “an egg is not just an egg”, and through Cavanagh Free Range’s own egg vending machine at ‘The Noble Grape”, McEntee’s Off Licence in County Monaghan.
The judging panel was impressed with the traceability factor of family-run Cavanagh eggs, feeling that they were “super ethical” and illustrated “a care for their product and the welfare of their chickens”.
Passion Preserved is owned by Claire Kelly, a former chartered accountant. Following in the footsteps of her maternal great-grandfather, who supplied his own vegetable shop, and inspired by her grandfather’s prolific gardens she visited as a child, Claire today produces a range of preserves, largely from her smallholding’s bounty.
Claire first planted a herb garden 25 years ago, dotted with a few vegetables and flowers. She says, “When I moved to our current home over 20 years ago I was fortunate that it had previously been a pig farm so the ground was amazing. Over the years the garden has grown and extended with the addition of a greenhouse and then a polytunnel when I outgrew that!” Originally Claire grew all her own fruits and vegetables; she now concentrates on ingredients for her seasonal collection – over 150 chilli plants in a polytunnel, 60 rhubarb crowns, beds of Jerusalem artichokes, plum trees and hundreds of raspberry canes.
Claire is passionate about organic gardening, preferring to let nature do its work in place of chemicals; a family of frogs in the polytunnel takes care of the slugs, and interplanting of marigolds deters aphids. The quality of soil is maintained by discarding hoes in favour of hand weeding.
Sustainable production is at the centre of the business, with Claire composting all vegetable waste and recycling or re-using cardboard for packaging. Extra ingredients are sourced locally, including Armagh cider vinegar and cider apples from 30 minutes away. In the height of the summer season when demand is high, chillies from Ballinderry and tomatoes from Drumbeg, a 20-minute journey, are used in Passion Preserved’s Indian Inspired Tomatoes.
All products are made by hand in small batches in Claire’s new purpose-built kitchen, with no artificial colourings, preservatives or added pectin and setting agents. She made her first chutney over 25 years ago to use up several large marrows left over from a church harvest festival; Claire still likes to experiment with natural ingredients, and is inspired by old recipes and her travels. The preserves can be used as dips, marinades, cooking sauces and condiments, and the sweet and spicy Indian Inspired Tomatoes is especially versatile.
The judges appreciated the company’s use of locally grown and sourced ingredients and the fair price that accompanied such effort, hailing Passion Preserved as showing a real willingness to think outside the box.
