62 | LUXlife Magazine Best Fresh Food Producer & Processing Company 2023 - UK Willowbrook Foods is a fresh food producer and processing company based on the McCann family farm in Killinchy, Northern Ireland. There are three areas of expertise the company focus on, these are retail, food service, and manufacturing. The family-owned business was officially established in 1968, and today is responsible for the creation of more than 300 products across two factories, which are exported throughout the UK and Ireland, including to leading retailers and hospitality settings. When Managing Director John McCan began farming vegetables on his father’s land and selling the products in local markets more than fifty years ago, he likely had no idea the successful enterprise the company would become. It was in 1978 that Willowbrook Foods secured its first major contract with retailer Wellworths, after spending the previous years producing prepared and packaged vegetables and soup mixes. John pioneered an innovate marketing strategy by packaging home-grown farm vegetables for supermarkets, which prior to the 1970s, did not happen. Ultimately, this marked the beginning of convenience and added high-value vegetable products as John identified consumers’ demand for convenient products, but it would not be until 1996 when business would really start to boom, when Willowbrook launched into the retail industry with Supermac and Wellworths. Willowbrook Foods’ primary factory operates from Killinchy, but in 2009 a second factory located in Newtownards followed, with the purpose of housing the company’s prepared salad production, before this was eventually moved to Killinchy, and Newtownards was renovated into a new cooking facility beginning in the summer of 2017. The site at Killinchy became the largest salad and vegetable processing company in Ireland, showing how far the company had come since supplying prepared vegetables to local supermarkets in the 1980s. It was the 1990s where the business began to move into prepared bagged salads and bowls, with an average production of 200 packs a day after the purchase of a bagging machine. Today, the company produces more than 50,000 packs a day, thanks to the modern technology of automated multipacking machines. As a result of ambitious growth plans, Willowbrook opened a state-of-the-art production site in 2011, consisting of an investment of £5.5 million in order to enhance production and enhanced capabilities. Willowbrook Foods’ headquarters is situated on the Killinchy site, along with the hub for New Product Technology, which is driven by consumer trends and advances in technology. That same year, the Willowbrook Food Innovation Centre was opened, with the purpose of delivering innovative food excellence to new and existing customers, providing them with new product solutions that will suit the needs of their own customers. Following on from the renovation of the Newtownards site into a successful cooking facility in 2017, the company has seen constant growth, with year 2 sales growing 9% and year 3 sales increasing a further 11%. This would not have been possible without a dedicated team of managers, supervisors, and employees, all of whom have demonstrated considerable admiration and loyalty to the brand over the course of developments. Over the years, Willowbrook Foods has continued to develop its range of products, and is now the largest processor of lettuce bags and salads across Northern Ireland and Ireland. In recent years, the range of products available has developed from more traditional to value added convenient products with the best flavour profiles and consistency, in order to deal with shifting consumer demands. The company aims to further develop by eventually becoming the leading cooked vegetable sides producer across Northern Ireland and Ireland, expanding the business in an efficient and viable way. It is this determination that has already resulted in Willowbrook Foods’ products being free from artificial colours and preservatives, as well as the business sustaining a BRC accreditation Grade A for more than ten years. Presently, the team is made up of just over 220 employees split between the two factories in Northern Ireland, and the company currently supplies many of the top retail and foodservice companies across the UK and Ireland, serving such key retailers as Iceland, Lidl, Aldi, Spar, Subway, KFC, and Dominos, to name just a few. The journey that the company has undertaken over the past several decades is incredibly inspiring and heartwarming, and the array of awards and accreditations Willowbrook Foods has received, and continues to receive, is testament to the hard work, innovation, and sustainability of the business, and success is sure to follow for many years to come. Contact: Fiona McMullan Company: Willowbrook Foods Web Address: https://willowbrookfoods.co.uk/
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