16 February 2023 - Flipbook - Page 47
FARMWEEK
OCTOBER 28 2021
BUSINESS
Interview: Arnaldo’s love of hazelnut
flavour leads to top taste award in Britain P49
Top rural
business award
for Mash Direct
47
INDUSTRY INSIGHT: Nurturing
the next big thing P51
Hinch Distillery Whiskey
in export deal to Hawaii
LEFT: Dr Terry Cross
OBE and Patrick Cross
from Hinch Distillery
celebrate global
domination as it signs
up US State of Hawaii
as its latest export
destination.
WINNER: The Mash family team on their
farm near Comber, County Down.
BY SAM BUTLER
S
PECIALIST in vegetable and
convenience foods, Mash Direct
has been named regional winner of
the Best Rural Food and Drink Business
of the Year in Wales and Northern Ireland
at the 2021 Rural Business Awards,
sponsored by Amazon,
The Rural Business Awards (RBA)
recognise businesses operating right
across the rural sector, acknowledging
the breadth and depth of opportunity
presented by the country side, and
celebrating the achievements of rural
businesses.
Clare Forster, Head of Marketing at Mash
Direct, said: “It is a great honour to have
won this award. The Rural Business
Awards highlight businesses that value
their rural roots and it is an amazing
achievement for all our team to have
won this regional award.”
The awards reward businesses who
value their rural roots, contribute
to employment, infrastructure, and
train young people. RBA encourages
entrepreneurial spirit in the rural sector
and give recognition to excellence
in business set-up, operation, and
management.
Based on the Hamilton family farm near
Comber in County Down, Mash Direct is
now a successful supplier of innovative
plant-based foods to supermarkets in
Great Britain, the Republic of Ireland, the
US, Middle East and Asia.
The awards were established in late
2014 by Jemma Clifford and Anna Price –
two business owners who work in rural
Leicestershire. The first awards were
presented in October 2015.
The Rural Business Awards (RBAs) work
with partner organisations large and
small, Amazon is the headline partner for
the third year running. Amongst other
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BY SAM BUTLER
H
INCH Irish Whiskey, which officially
opened its distillery earlier this year,
has gone on sale in Hawaii, over 7,000
miles from its home just outside
Ballynahinch.
The contract comes just as Hinch
celebrated taking away Exporter of the
Year at the recent Ulster Grocer Marketing
Awards.
It also comes after the business won a
Double Gold Medal for its Irish Whiskey
Double Wood Aged Five Years product at
‘The Fifty Best’ - a New York awards event
and a Silver and Judges’ Selection at the
Alberta Beverage Awards 2021.
Meanwhile its Ninth Wave Irish Gin has
been awarded “Best in Class” for a second
year running at the Alberta Beverage Awards
2021.
To celebrate its success locally and
internationally and its expanding customer
base, the company will brand three iconic
black taxis in Belfast City centre to showcase
its offering and spread the word that a
local brand is making it big worldwide and
investing in the local economy.
Chairman of Hinch Distillery, Dr Terry
Cross, said the firm is on target to reach £30
million sales over the next three years: “The
awards that we win and the contracts that we
secure in destinations all over the world help
us meet our goal of spreading the taste of
Northern Ireland with the rest of the world.
“It also comes back to us and allows us
to further invest in the economy here and
create more jobs.
“We are delighted with the response our
product range has received and we are proud
to have distributors dotted all over the world,
in locations that continue to mount.”
Within Hinch’s customer portfolio are
the US, Canada, Russia, Germany, Czech
Republic, Australia, Poland, Denmark,
Lithuania, Netherlands, Hungry, Japan, New
Zealand, Italy, Spain, Belgium, Hong Kong,
Taiwan, People’s Republic of China, Republic
of Ireland, Ukraine, Switzerland, France,
Sweden Norway and Nigeria.
As well as a classic range of aged whiskeys
and gin products, Hinch has garnered a
reputation for its more unique offering
including An Chead Dún cask, the first Irish
Single Malt spirit using Hinch’s distilling
techniques, as well as Hinch 18-Year-Old
Single Malt, finished in Château de La Ligne
casks.
Its “Craft & Casks” range also launched
earlier this year, offering the whiskey lover
a unique trio of fine Irish whiskeys finished
using craft beer casks.
The £15 million Hinch Distillery which lies
between Belfast and Ballynahinch on the
glorious Killaney Estate launched after much
anticipation in November last year.
DROMORE’S KRAZI BAKER CROWNED BREAD HERO
BY SAM BUTLER
M
ARK Douglas from
Dromore, County Down
has been crowned
Northern Ireland’s Bread Hero
in the Tiptree World Bread
Awards with Brook Food in
London.
Mark launched Krazi Baker
eight years ago after being
LEFT: Mark Douglas, Krazi
Baker, at work in his small
bakery.
inspired by food markets in
continental Europe. He came
to the realisation that no one
was selling bread baked onsite.
“You’d see every product
under the sun, but never bread
baked on-site. I was wondering
how to do this and when I
went back to work, the answer
was staring me in the face hotplates and soda bread,”
says Mark.
Mark bakes on hotplates
on site at markets, such as
Newtownards, Comber and
Carrickfergus and agri-food
shows, such as The Balmoral
Show, Castlewellan Show and
The Antrim Garden Show.
Customers wolf down his
bakes, which include iconic
items such as soda farls and
potato bread, as fast as he
can make them. His ethos is
to bake bread by hand with
no additives, preservatives or
bread improvers...just natural
bread.
Unfortunately, Mark’s business,
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