Northern Irish biscuits taste success in Spain

Grace's, the Northern Irish gourmet biscuit business, has been listed by El Corte Ingles, the upmarket Spanish department store group. The company, which is based in Bangor, county Down, has just delivered a consignment of its handcrafted traditional Irish shortbread and oatmeal biscuits to the Spanish store in Barcelona in what it describes as its "biggest export order to date".

Graces also supplies retailers in Britain, the Republic of Ireland, the Netherlands, Germany and Japan. The significant deal with El Corte Ingles follows extensive discussions and samplings last year by buyers in Barcelona of the company's range of biscuits.

The deal was announced by William Bullock, managing director of Grace's, the family business he formed in 2004 after a successful career in international sales. In addition the company, which has won a string of UK Great Taste Awards for its shortbread and oatmeal biscuits, has expanded its product portfolio to include Irish breakfast tea, Titanic branded jams, fudge and drinking chocolate, the most recent addition.

Mr Bullock says: "Signing our biggest export order to date from such an influential department store is a marvellous endorsement of the originality and quality of our biscuits. El Corte Ingles is Europe's biggest department store and ranked fourth worldwide. We were helped by Invest Northern Ireland to link up with a representative in Spain who opened the door for us to top buyers in Barcelona.

'It's immensely encouraging to see our biscuits on the shelves of the stores very impressive gourmet food halls especially in the centre of Barcelona. It's also a further boost to our efforts to establish Graces as a genuinely international brand and one that's associated with premium quality Irish biscuits from the best available ingredients including Northern Irish creamery butter.

"Embracing tradition and home grown resources are at the heart of our brand and are reflected in our business growth strategy, our commitment is to deliver truly unique, high quality, Irish products, using the best of locally sourced ingredients from trusted producers.

The company's oatmeal biscuits gained two gold stars status in the UK Guild of Fine Foods Great Taste Awards and was awarded 'best new product by a small company at the 2009 Northern Ireland Food and Drink Association Awards and received a '10 out of 10' for product quality from the judging panel. It also gained a gold star for its Irish oatmeal biscuits in last year's Great Taste Awards.

Headquartered in Madrid, El Corte Ingles, Spain's only remaining department chain, also operates a network of hyper and supermarkets across the country. In addition, the group has stores in Portugal.