Willowbrook Foods in major deal with Alpha Catering

Willowbrook Foods in Northern Ireland has won a contract to develop, produce and supply a range of deli-style salads to Alpha Catering, one of the world's leading and quality conscious flight caterers.

Willowbrook, based on a family farm at Killinchy in county Down, is providing almost 70 innovative deli salads for Alpha Catering in London. The salads were developed by the new product development team at Willowbrook's dedicated Innovation Centre in association with Alpha chefs for in-flight meals supplied to major international airlines.

John McCann, founder and managing director of Willowbrook Foods, Northern Ireland's leading supplier of pre-packed vegetables, deli salads and convenience dishes for foodservice and retail, commenting on the company's latest contract, says:

"Winning this significant business from such a prestigious and quality focused customer as Alpha Catering is a marvellous boost for us and especially for the expert team in our Innovation Centre.

"It's also a tremendous endorsement of the skills and experience of the centre and our overall ability to respond quickly, in a flexible and effective way to the requirements of such an important customer. O

"Our business is based on developing and producing highly innovative solutions for customers. The establishment of the Innovation Centre in 2012 demonstrated our dedication to new product development for the needs of customers.

"Alpha tasked us to come up with 68 authentic deli salads for airline meals that offered outstanding taste in July. We pulled out all the stops and developed a close relationship with Alpha's chefs which enabled us to deliver innovative salads by August and to secure the hugely important business," he adds.

Among the innovative salads created by Willowbrook are Thai Quinoa, Lemon Olive Pasta, Apricot Tabouleh and Potato Liegeoise and although many of the recipes are quite diverse and unusual, Willowbrook focused on providing a local flavour as much as possible. The company used Northern Ireland ingredients, where possible, including potatoes, carrots and rapeseed oil.

Alpha Catering has bases in 60 airports worldwide and provides quality in-flight meals - more than 320,000 meals a day - to over 130 airlines in 21 countries.

With catering, packing and distribution facilities including Australia, Italy, Singapore, South Africa, the UK, the USA and the UAE, Alpha has an outstanding reputation for managing customers' global catering requirements with excellence and efficiency.

Established in 1977 by Mr McCann on the family farm overlooking picturesque Strangford Lough, Willowbrook Foods has longstanding reputation in the production and processing of fresh food for customers throughout the UK and Ireland. It is the largest processor of lettuce bags and salads in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. It currently employs 250 people in Willowbrook Foods and a separate business, Willowbrook Fine Foods, a specialist in convenience meals and side dishes.

Willowbrook Foods has held BRC accreditation Grade A for over 10 years and in November 2016 acquired grade AA for the first time in the company' history. Continuous investment in its business gives Willowbrook a position among the most modern processing operations in the UK and Ireland.