O’Doherty’s bacon streaks ahead

Customers at top restaurants, hotels and upmarket retailers in Belgium and the Netherlands are enjoying the distinctively natural flavour of O’Doherty’s Fermanagh black bacon and unique nitrite-free bacon from Enniskillen.

O’Doherty’s Fine Meats has won orders worth more than £100,000 since taking part in the 'Salone del Gusto' in Turin last October.

The company, which has been assisted by Invest NI’s Trade team to develop its business outside Northern Ireland, took part in a Food from Britain display at the event, the main European show for ‘Slow Food’, natural products.

The company, which currently employs around 30 people in Enniskillen, also benefited from its participation in the recent ‘Truly British’ promotion at Harrods store in London, a trade initiative organised in association with Invest NI.

“The promotion enabled us to strengthen our longstanding relationship with Harrods and to win business for two of our latest products – bacon cured in seaweed and brandy and fresh pork from our own herd of Tamworth free-range pigs, which we rear naturally on an island in Upper Lough Erne.

“In addition, we received orders from several top chefs and 10 upmarket retail food stores during the Harrods promotion,” says Pat O’Doherty, Managing Director of O’Doherty’s Fine Meats.

“Interest in our products at the Turin and London events was fabulous. Many top gourmet chefs in London, Amsterdam and Brussels are now including our pork and bacon on their menus.

“Both events were great for networking and were wonderful opportunities for us to market existing products and launch new developments. They helped us to raise our profile outside Northern Ireland and have produced new business and exciting opportunities for us to grow our sales in Great Britain and the Benelux region,” he added.

O’Doherty’s was among a group of 10 Northern Ireland food processing companies which took part in the ‘Truly British’ promotion at Harrods from September 5 to October 15.

(SP)