Northern Ireland food supplier Henderson Foodservice won the ‘Employer of the Year’ title in the prestigious Grocer Gold Awards celebrating excellence in food retailing.

The company, which is based at Newtownabbey in county Antrim, is Northern Ireland’s biggest food wholesaler and a leading SPAR and EUROSPAR symbol retailer.

The judges said Henderson has “clear values” and “an innovative health and wellbeing plan” that is delivering “tangible benefits”.

Henderson Foodservice supplies and delivers to customers across Ireland including hotels, schools, restaurants, fast food outlets, hospitals, nursing homes, cafes, sandwich bars, retail convenience stores plus many more.

The company is a division of the Henderson Group. It offers a comprehensive service to the catering industry, providing a vast and varied product offering across ambient, chilled, frozen, non–food, bakery and fresh produce ranges.

State–of–the–art warehousing facilities, an impressive frozen, chilled and ambient fleet and an innovative order capture and picking system allow Henderson Foodservice to maintain an effective distribution system and excellent service levels.

The Northern Ireland company celebrated 50 years of operations in 2017 and has been named on Deloitte’s list of Best Managed Companies for four consecutive years and was recently awarded Investors in People Gold Standard.

The Grocer Gold awards were established 14 years ago to celebrate and recognise the very best standards in the grocery wholesale and retail sectors and provide a platform for recognition for all companies from large multiple suppliers to independent retailers.  

The 20 categories focused on key business areas such as innovation and customer satisfaction with awards finalists and winners decided by a prestigious panel of 26 independent judges as well as exclusively commissioned research from The Grocer magazine and its partners. 

Mark Stewart–Maunder, Henderson Foodservice business development director, said the team were incredibly proud to be successful in the renowned annual awards programme.

“The Grocer Gold awards are highly respected within the industry and are judged against stringent set criteria comprising innovation, originality, creative concept, execution, business acumen and results.

“It’s a tribute to our progressive approach, ongoing investment and successful employment growth within a competitive market sector which has helped us achieve this award.

 “As a finalist in the Employer of the Year category we have demonstrated a positive working environment helping to motivate and train our people whilst at the same time enhancing company performance and reputation. We recently secured the Investors in People Gold Standard and are immensely proud of that achievement also.”   

Pic caption: Grocer Gold success: Celebrating Henderson Foodservice at this year’s Grocer Gold Awards are, left, Mark Stewart–Maunder, business development director, Damien Barrett, managing director and Kiera Campbell, sales director.