Armagh’s Orchard Smokehouse wins new business with Aldi Ireland

Meadow Farm Quality Foods in Armagh has won business from Aldi Ireland for its Orchard Smoke House, Smoked Chicken Wings product.

The specialist in smoked and other meats has been included in the German-owned retailer’s innovative ‘Grow with Aldi’ scheme which gives artisan and smaller food processors an opportunity to impress its buyers and achieve sales which could lead to longer-term business.

Orchard Smokehouse director Frank Foster says: “This is another opportunity for us to build on our existing relationship with Aldi Ireland buyers and to secure a fully-fledged contract.

“Our smoked duck breasts were included in last year’s products and sold pretty well. They’ve now asked us to put forward the smoked chicken wings, a product they also liked last year but didn’t then include. We’d be very confident that this product will prove extremely popular with Aldi customers in the Republic,” he adds.

The smoked chicken wing is a 400g convenience product that can be eaten hot and cold and is provided in a plastic tray within an eye-catching sleeve. The smoking is carried out by Orchard Smoke House in its in-house smoker using quality wings from UK sourced chicken.

The wings will soon be available in all of Aldi Ireland’s 142 supermarkets across the Republic of Ireland.

In addition to its smoked chicken wings, other Orchard Smoke House products include its prize-winning smoked duck fillets, smoked chicken fillets, smoked turkey fillets and smoked gammon.

Other recent customers include the Henderson Retail Group in Northern Ireland for its Eurospar superstores. Orchard is supplying a range of smoked meats to 38 Eurospar stores.

Mr Foster adds: “Henderson Group is another immensely important customer for us because of its position as Northern Ireland leading retailer and foodservice organisation. We are delighted to be supplying them with our product range in what is another tremendous endorsement of our quality meats. It builds on our existing business with foodservice.

Orchard Smoke House is a retail brand of farm-based Meadow Farm Quality Foods which launched the smoked range in late 2018 in response to a market opportunity, particularly in Ireland, for a genuine traditionally smoked range of quality meats.

Mr Foster continues: “We only use the finest Irish or British meat and poultry and we are passionate about how they are handled, cured and smoked to ensure that we produce only the finest smoked meats and poultry to satisfy all our customers.”