MASH DIRECT GAINS TOP QUALITY ACCREDITATION

Mash Direct, the award winning specialist in quality convenience potato and vegetable products, has become the first company in Ireland to achieve a top quality award from the influential British Retail Consortium (BRC). Based in Comber, County Down, Mash Direct gained BRC's coveted A Star certificate, which is awarded following successful completion of an unannounced audit by the quality organisation's assessors. While the vast majority of certificates are based on the findings of pre-arranged audits, Mash Direct was so confident of the consistently high quality of all its operations that management opted for an unannounced visit. Tracy Hamilton, Mash Direct's Marketing Director, said: ???Our procedures are the same every hour of the day all year long. We had no hesitation about telling BRC to audit our systems whenever they wished??¦and they did, at 9.30 am on a Monday morning ! The auditors called completely unannounced, examined the business and all our procedures and products and gave us top ranking. ???This is a marvellous endorsement of the quality of our operations and means that customers can count on us to provide them with a range of outstanding products.??? BRC, the UK's leading quality accreditation body for food retailing, imposes a set of systems which ensure both good management practice and the highest standard of food hygiene. Achieving ???A Star grade demonstrates that a company gives 100 per cent support to the principles behind BRC, showing that it is totally committed to the issue of food hygiene and that as a company, it aims for the highest possible standards. Mash Direct, a family owned and managed business, is now a major supplier of steamed ready-to-cook potato and vegetable meal accompaniments to most of the main supermarkets throughout the UK and Ireland. The company has a portfolio of 13 products including mashed potato, champ, colcannon, carrot, turnip and parsnip, red cabbage and beetroot, green cabbage and cheese and onion mash. The products are grown on the Hamilton family farm at Comber and sourced from other local farms. Formed in 2004, Mash Direct has developed a strong market position through a longstanding commitment to quality and new product development. The company has won a string of awards in the UK and Ireland for its quality and innovation, including a series of Great Taste Awards from the UK Guild of Fine Foods, the UK Food Manufacture Excellence Award (Small Business section), the Ulster Bank Business Achievers Award and the All Ireland Marketing Award. Mash direct delivers around 2,750 tonnes of finished product per annum to the major supermarkets in Northern Ireland, Great Britain and the Republic of Ireland, as well as smaller retailers. The company now uses 2,000 tonnes of potatoes; 1,000 tonnes of carrots; 1,500 tonnes of turnips and parsnips; 30 acres worth of cabbage and a small amount of beetroot annually, all sourced from the family farm and others in Northern Ireland.