Food companies from across Northern Ireland that supply Tesco stores exhibited local products to the public last weekend at the Tesco Taste Festival at Custom House Square in Belfast.

Speaking to the Irish Farmers Journal at the event, Tesco NI marketing manager Caoimhe Mannion said her research has consistently shown that the range of local produce available in supermarkets influences where consumers shop due to an increasing demand among the public for local food.

The annual event is held In Belfast to promote local food and allow consumers to directly engage with Tesco suppliers from NI, she said.

Listen to Peter's interview with Caoimhe here:

“We expect 25,000 members of the public at the festival over the three days. If we can get more people thinking ‘Can I buy a Northern Ireland alternative?’ when they shop for a product, then that has benefits the whole way along the supply chain,” Mannion said.

She said Tesco buys £580m worth of NI food each year. The supermarket chain states that all Tesco branded fresh beef, pork, chicken and eggs are from NI farms. Mannion said beef is sourced from the Foyle Food Group and packed by the Hilton Food Group, pork comes from the Karro Food Group in Cookstown, chicken from Moy Park and eggs from Skea Eggs.

Lamb in Tesco stores is not all sourced from NI farms and can be a contentious issue with producers, particularly at times of peak local supply. Most recent figures from AHDB for August 2016 suggest that 75% of lamb products in a sample of Tesco stores across the UK were labelled as UK origin. Most of the 60 local companies exhibiting at the event were local food companies that market produce under their own brands in Tesco stores in NI. Mannion said buyers for Tesco stores in Britain were at the event for the first time this year. “This could allow some local companies to secure listings in stores in Britain also,” she said.

Supplier focus

Milgro Ian Miller

Our business is twofold – we produce whole onions and then our added-value tobacco onions which use product that isn’t used at other stages.

We have been supplying our tobacco onion line to Tesco for four and a half years and we also supply other supermarkets and independent retailers in Northern Ireland.

We are arable farming in the Myroe area of Limavady and have been growing onions for 25 years. Onion harvest is from the end of August into September. The onions are stored in box cold stores under 5°C.

We supply onions 365 days of the year and try to use as much of our own onions as possible. It is a family-run business with 15 staff employed in the processing and packaging factory on farm.

Skea Eggs Jackie McConnell

The business started with my father Matt Hayes in the early 1970s. He had his own hen house and supplied eggs to the wholesale market. It started from supplying eggs to hospitals and schools and selling in Cookstown market on Saturdays. Our first supermarket contract was Morrisons in England. We have been supplying Tesco since they came to Northern Ireland 20 years ago. We supply our own Skea branded eggs as well as the Tesco brand. We have free range, enriched and organic eggs lines.

We still have one laying hen unit ourselves but we contract production out to farmers across 130 sites in Northern Ireland. We collect the eggs and then process and pack them at our facility near Dungannon. We employ 130 staff at present and the packing centre runs six days a week.

Cloughbane Farm Shop Amy Moore

We have just launched 11 new lines into Tesco for ready-made dinners, including chicken curry and rice, bangers and mash and spaghetti bolognaise. We have been supplying Tesco since 2012.

The business is run by the Robinson family who are also involved in mixed farming enterprises near Pomeroy. It started off in 2002 by selling beef and lamb from the farm at a local farmers’ market and then from that a farm shop was set up. Our unique selling point was 28-day matured beef. Steaks and roasts were popular which left lesser cuts of meat. This then led on to cooking pies to add value. In all our ready meals the beef is either sourced on or within a 50-mile radius of our farm. Chicken and pork used in our products are all UK or Irish origin.

Connolly Meats James Connolly

My father Hugh Connolly started the business over 40 years ago. He started processing and supplying pork products to local shops and butchers and then gradually progressed to supplying supermarket chains.

We process pork in our factory near Scotstown in Co Monaghan. The factory moved in 2004 to a greenfield site closer to the family farm where we farm beef cattle. The pork is all Irish origin and comes from a few different suppliers.

We have been supplying Tesco for six years and currently supply six lines of pork products in their stores. We also supply Asda, Spar and Dunnes Stores. We are involved in research and development of new products, such as our pork goujons. We employ 52 staff in the factory and more staff can sometimes come on at peak times.