Northern Ireland
Did you know?
At Tesco we believe that to deliver you, our customer, a range of products that reflects the richness, character and diversity of Northern Ireland it is essential we source ranges of products from local suppliers as well as stocking the well known bigger regional brands, we also source from many smaller producers and manufacturers.
Our Northern Irish suppliers grow with us and we are proud to support regional agriculture and manufacturing - we have stores in many of the towns where our suppliers are based and are proud to contribute to the success of those communities.
Already we sell more than 1,500 products from some 60 regional suppliers and their hundreds of producers - for example, 1,400 local farmers supply us with beef and lamb.
We buy more than £350 million of local food and drink each year. Our dedicated team is always working to bring new products into stores across the province and the rest of the UK.
Dale Farm
Suppliers like Dale Farm. Owned by 2,500 dairy farmers across Northern Ireland, Dale Farm processes their milk to provide all the own-label milk sold in our stores in the province.
The company also supplies us with a range of yogurts, cheeses and spreads, all made with milk or dairy ingredients from local cows.
Over the past year, the company has launched The One milk, which offers the taste of semi skimmed milk but just 1 per cent fat. Its latest innovation is probiotic cheddar, which delivers the digestive benefits of probiotics in a tasty cheese.
Dale Farm employs more than 650 people at its four sites across the province and supplies us with over 200 tonnes of cheese and almost five million pots of yogurt a year.
Says the company's Jason Hempton, "Our business has grown dramatically in the 10 years we have been working with Tesco. One of the main advantages is that Tesco supports us in developing new products, challenging us to be innovative."
Irwin's Bakery
Far more bread is eaten in Ireland than anywhere else in the UK. and Irwin's Bakery has been giving the province its daily bread since 1912, when Brian Irwin's great aunt began to bake bread and fruit cakes to sell in her brother's shop in Portadown.
Almost a century later, Brian, his brother Niall and their team of around 450 people supply our stores with over four million pan and plain loaves every year, still baked to traditional family recipes.
That said, Irwin's is certainly not stuck in the past. Quick to recognise the popularity of the GI diet, it was the first in the UK to offer a low GI white bread. Brian said: "It offers the taste that the family loves, but the benefits of a low Glycaemic Index, making you feel fuller for longer."
Genesis
This family run firm and Brian Mc Erlian is one of six brothers who each has an individual role within the company. Its origins are a home bakery, run by parents Joe and Roberta from the late 1960's, the family living above and beside the shop. In the school holidays the boys all learned the baker's art - and got used to early rising.
While the business is now on a much bigger, modern site, still in Magherafelt, this is no mass production plant. The Genesis brand was launched in 1998, with a core range of premium breads. Genesis Crafty the latest development, is all about indulgence, with a list of wholesome ingredients. The range has indulged its taste for innovation without reinventing the wheel.
Most of the ingredients are local and the inspirations most certainly are.
Tayto
Tayto, Northern Ireland's household name in crisps and snacks, now makes a range of Tesco own-brand crisps, including Finest, for our stores across the UK, as well as supplying us with Tayto Fusion snacks.
Tayto Managing Director Stephen Hutchinson said: "We buy more than 20,000 tonnes of potatoes each year, most from Northern Ireland. This year we estimate the potato usage will increase by 30%."
Every person in Northern Ireland eats £7 worth of Tayto a year, with cheese and onion the best selling flavour province-wide. The exact recipe is a closely guarded secret, held in a bank vault and known only by a trusted few.
Wilsons
Wilson's Country Ltd
Almost all of the potatoes sold in our Northern Ireland stores come from Wilson's Country Ltd. Angus Wilson's 24 growers supply us with 220 tonnes of potatoes each week - compared with the one or two tonnes he provided to our one Metro store a decade ago.
Now a significant employer, with 120 staff in Craigavon, County Armagh, the company is convinced much of its success has been driven by taste. You must agree - because you voted their Wilson's Country Garden potatoes one of your favourite products in our awards schemes.
The company has recently diversified, to also offer us fresh prepared fruit. Angus said: "The fruit is freshly prepared on the island of Ireland, making it an ideal choice for today's health- and time-conscious consumer. It's in part the strength of our relationship with Tesco that gives us the confidence to be bold."
Roy Lyttle
We now sell organic produce, meat and bakery goods alongside conventional ranges. Not only can we offer an even wider selection, but also, we want to make shopping as easy as possible for you. We want all of the organic meat and milk we sell to be British and are working with suppliers to try to increase availability of British organic food.
Supplier Roy Lyttle, plans to double the number of organic lines he delivers to us this year.
Ards-based Roy has worked hard to extend the length of the UK season since diversifying into organics four years ago.
He now supplies our Northern Ireland and Republic of Ireland stores with locally grown organic leeks and savoy and green cabbage from August right through to April. His new organic lines include purple sprouting broccoli, red and white cabbage.
Roy supplied us with 4.5 tonnes of conventional leeks each week last year, almost double the amount he delivered when he first started working with us in 1997, as well as conventional scallions and soup vegetables.
He adds: "The relationship with Tesco means I can plan with confidence because the orders come in like clockwork."
After starting out in farming on a rented two-acre plot in 1979, Roy now employs 15 -20 people and farms 130 acres in the Ards area.