Successful café/deli moves into wholesale and foodservice

Mange Tout, a successful French-style café/deli business in Northern Ireland, is launching its first range of branded products for retail, wholesale and foodservice.

The business is based at Downpatrick in county Down and is run by husband and wife team Franck and Tina Brétéché.

Mr Brétéché, originally from Nantes, is a qualified chef who started the café/deli after gaining experience with top local chefs Paul Rankin and Simon Dougan. He has been based in Northern Ireland for over 20 years.

The development of a range of Mange Tout branded bread, pies and patisserie products that he has created using his own recipes is part of a series of initiatives to grow the business, now recognised as among the most successful in county Down. Mange Tout currently employs five people in Downpatrick.

"Setting up my own French-style café in Northern Ireland had been a dream for a number of years. I wanted to work with the superb local ingredients readily available here and use my experience from back home in France to create a different menu that would include some of the foods popular in Nantes and other parts of the Loire region," Franck explains.

"I am now using those ingredients to create a range of products following requests for diners and other retailers. We've already won business for the products from local retailers," he adds.

"Our focus is on making and selling top-quality artisan bread, desserts, and luxury foods."

The initial range of branded products includes popular items such as raspberry crumble bread, courgette and walnut bread, blueberry and white chocolate loaf, banana and vanilla loaf, sundried tomato, Irish goat's cheese and spinach quiche, pure butter apple pie and luxury carrot cake.

The business, in addition, has created a popular game pie and a range of fruit pies.

The branded products have been test marketed successfully at farmers' markets and other food events across Northern Ireland.