Top Grocer award for Northern Ireland's Unimush

Unimush Ireland, a specialist in filled mushrooms and peppers, has won a major award in The Grocer magazine's prestigious Own Label Food and Drink Awards.

Based at Armagh in county Armagh, Unimush came top in the Traditional Chilled Ready Meals category with its unique cheesey rice stuffed peppers, a product developed for Asda.

The judging panel acclaimed the product as "a wonderful end result from such simple ingredients". The judges gave it maximum points for innovation and relevance.

The awards attracted over 1,000 nominations from the leading UK retailers and involved extensive consumer tastings before a shortlist if 372 was agreed.

Unimush Ireland was established in 1999 by business partners Seamus Cassidy and Plunkett Curry. They recognised an opportunity in the marketplace for an innovative mushroom marketing business.

Both partners had worked for a number of years in the mushroom industry and decided to pool their expertise and establish what is a unique company for Northern Ireland.

The company currently supplies a broad range of mushrooms including closed cup, button mushrooms, breakfast flats, chestnut mushrooms and portabellas., as well as other filled products. The product range is supplied in various pack sizes to suit customer requirements.

In 2008, Unimush invested in a state of the art mushroom slicing and bagging line, allowing it to supply bagged sliced mushrooms, using a laser perforated anti mist film.

The company has also won UK Great Taste Awards for its products.