Client Newsroom

An Irish artisan bakery has almost tripled sales in Britain in the past
two years through a commitment to export, innovation and a strong
customer focus.

Magherafelt-based McErlain’s produces a range of scones, pancakes and
traditional Irish breads under the Genesis Crafty brand and supplies a
range of major retailers including Marks and Spencer, Waitrose,
Sainsbury’s and Tesco.

A 270 per cent growth in sales, including a major deal to supply Marks
and Spencer with own label Jam Bake, Lemon Drizzle Bake and Iced Tops
contributed to a 90 per cent overall growth in turnover for the artisan
bakery and the creation of 66 new jobs in the past two years.

The impressive growth is the outcome of a £1.4 million business plan
launched in 2009. The bakery reinvented itself to become among the most
progressive of its type in the UK through continuous investment, new
product development and the latest marketing techniques including social
media activities such as a very dynamic and engaging website, blog and a
unique web-based game.

Commenting on the growth of the business, McErlain’s Bakery, Managing
Director, Brian McErlain said: “We launched our expansion programme in
2009 and have exceeded our targets on all fronts. This has been achieved
through an intimate understanding of our markets and customer base
alongside our investment in people and systems that enable us firstly to
identify new market opportunities and then to respond quickly and
flexibly to them.

“While we have invested substantially in all aspects of marketing we
have sought to maintain a well thought-through and clear band
proposition as a premium quality artisan bakery – an approach which
emphasises the family heritage of six brothers and provenance of all our
products.

“By combining this heritage and commitment to quality products from the
best ingredients with contemporary marketing techniques we’ve set
ourselves apart from competitors in what is a very fast moving and
challenging marketplace,” he added.

McErlain’s Bakery began as a simple home bakery which has held on to its
initial ethos and values as well as its artisan approach.

The Genesis brand was launched in 1998 to develop and market a new range
of breads to reinforce its image as an artisan bakery with a commitment
to innovative products.
McErlain’s Bakery currently employs 173 people at Magherafelt and has
also strengthened its management and marketing teams.

The quality and innovation underpinning the bakery’s extensive product
portfolio have also been endorsed by the UK Guild of Fine Foods in the
prestigious Great Taste Awards.

The long-standing partnership between Patton and the Ulster Orchestra was recognised at the glittering A&B Awards held at the Lyric Theatre, Belfast.  The two organisations were presented with the Sustained Partnership Award for continuing to collaborate on innovative, creative outreach projects within the local community.

Patton Marketing Manager, Alan Stewart adds: “This particular award is very special because it recognises a partnership between two organisations over a substantial period of time.  Initiatives such as the Arts & Business Investment Programme strengthens our relationship with the Ulster Orchestra, fulfilling a major element of our CSR strategy and the commitments that we have set out in our 10 year sustainability initiative – DNA.”

Over the past number of years Patton and the Ulster Orchestra have collaborated on a number of successful community initiatives.  These include the ‘Musical Building Blocks’ project at the Braid, Ballymena; the ‘Greenhouse Project’ with pupils from Orangefield Primary School, Belfast and ‘Foundation’, working with A-Level music students at the newly built Grosvenor Grammar School, Belfast.  All of these new build construction projects have been completed by Patton.

Patton Chairman, David Patton MBE concludes: “The Ulster Orchestra contributes in a huge way to the cultural life of Northern Ireland and we value our association with them.  The team at the Orchestra strive for excellence, just as we do.  We derive a strong sense of satisfaction in being able to contribute to the continued success of this superb orchestra.”

/ENDS.

Watch out for the opening of Acheson & Glover’s new Outside Room area at Murdock’s Builders’ Merchant, Skeoge Industrial Estate, L’Derry in March and get some exciting ideas on how to transform your outside space, while also adding value to your home.

Selling Acheson & Glover’s complete range of high-end paving, walling and flags products, the new centre will have a brand new state-of-the-art display area to enable customers to come and view the products in-situ. If you need any advice or information, Acheson & Glover has also appointed a highly skilled on-site sales person, William Robinson, to help you make the right choice.

With a range of new products for 2012 in fresh new colour options (some in a stunning finish, unique to Acheson & Glover), the centre is one of five new partnerships with builders’ merchants in Newry, Ladas Drive, Belfast, Glengormley and Lisburn,  providing convenient locations throughout the whole of Northern Ireland to complement the company’s existing dedicated Outside Rooms Centres in Omagh, Fivemiletown, Dungannon, Toome and Bangor.

“The new openings mean that anyone in Northern Ireland should be able to travel to one of our Outside Rooms outlets in less than an hour,” said Acheson & Glover’s Outside Room Manager, Lauren Acheson.

“This expansion is testimony to our dedication to provide excellence in service and product quality and is backed up with the appointment of six new staff in the Outside Rooms team as well as three new external sales staff and a new sales manager to better service the needs of our growing customer base.

“It’s a very exciting time for us at Acheson & Glover and we hope it will prove so with our customers as well, opening up new opportunities for home improvements at a time when more and more people are ‘improving, not moving’.”

A construction-related family owned business from Mid Ulster has managed to defy national business performance trends by posting an increase in turnover for the past 12 months of 50%!

Bellaghy based Premier Electrics, which handles commercial electrical installations for a range of large retailers throughout the UK, Ireland and mainland Europe saw sales grow in 2011 from £18m-£27m.

Managing DIrector, Mark Scullion, who established the business in 1993, attributes the success to the firm’s growing reputation for delivering major contracts on time and within budget.

“Our teams have worked tirelessly throughout the year the length and breadth of the UK and Ireland as well as increasingly in countries including Germany, Spain and Belgium.  We are delighted to have developed strong relationships with our clients over the years and, in 2010-11 partnered several of them into new territories.”

As part of its commitment to being closer to its customers and as a reflection of its growing operating base, Premier this year opened an office in Munich, Germany and plans to open an additional office in London asa part of its planning for 2012.

“We had to radically change our business strategy with the onset of the economic downturn in the Republic of Ireland which, traditionally, had accounted for almost a quarter of our turnover.  This meant looking to new markets and expanding through the establishment of a dedicated maintenance division.”

Although understandably delighted with Premier’s success, Mr Scullion is far from complacent.  “The ethos of this business is all about hard, honest endeavour with a relentless commitment to quality, so there will be no resting on laurels.  We are already well into our planning for 2012 and 2013 and our goal is to consolidate this year’s sales’ levels and continue to grow our reputation in the marketplace.”

Premier currently provides direct and indirect employment for around 150 people and is an Irish market leader in commercial electrical installation and maintenance.

Its clients include Primark, Penneys, ASDA, John Lewis, Debenhams and M&S. Its turnover had a peak of £30m at the height of the economic boom in 2007.

/ends.

Warm congratulations to Pakflatt founder and MD, Patrick McGonagle who has been recognised in this year’s Queen’s Birthday Honours list with an MBE for Services to Economic Development in Northern Ireland.

Pakflatt is a small business that has achieved truly global reach with its unique polling booth solution.  Patrick has been a long-standing SERIOUS client.

Well done Patrick.

A local family run company has been voted the best in Northern Ireland for its expertise in online marketing.

The multi-award winning Belmore Court Motel added to its ever increasing list of top gongs when it picked up the Best Overall Strategy prize in the first ever DANI Awards, organised by Digital Advertising Northern Ireland.

The local firm beat the most creative minds in digital online media to take the award at a plush black-tie event hosted by comedienne Nuala McKeever at the Hilton Hotel in Belfast last week.

Naomh McElhatton, founder of the DANI Awards said: “The Belmore Court Motel incorporated all the elements of a successful online strategy in their submission from SEO, PPC, social media and e-commerce.

“The judges were particularly impressed with their number 1 rating on Google for their key search words and coupled with a return on investment of £10 for every £1 spent this makes the Belmore Court Motel the overall winner in the online strategy category.”

With an HND in Computing, Belmore Court Motel owner Terry McCartney recognised the benefits of promoting his business online long before many other leading firms had latched onto the importance of the internet.

A thrilled Mr McCartney said:”We are over the moon. It is something in which we have had a genuine interest for a number of years and something we caught onto fairly quickly.

“The big benefit to our sales and the time and effort we put into it shows what we are doing must be right and not only are we getting lots of business out of it but our industry peers have recognised it.”

The DANI Awards brought together clients and agencies from across the province to single out excellence within the digital industry from best app, social media, viral media, online strategy and web design.

Invest Northern Ireland, Business First, Blueprint Appointments, University of Ulster and Chain Reaction Cycles supported the inaugural awards.

Founder of The DANI Awards Naomh McElhatton said: “The digital industry in Northern Ireland is growing at a rapid rate and it’s about time that those working in the industry are recognised for their work.”

Belmore was also recognised as among the top three in two other categories Best app and Best Viral Campaign.

The motel beat Alzheimer’s Research UK (Being) and CIM Excellence Awards (Stakeholder) to pick up the Best Online Strategy Award.

Landscape Centre wins FIVE prizes at Association of Landscape Contractors of Ireland annual awards

A Northern Ireland company, which employs around 200 people across its design, contracting and maintenance teams is celebrating after landing five major prizes at a prestigious all-Ireland awards’ ceremony.

The Landscape Centre at Ballyclare added to its already lengthy list of accolades with three firsts and two runner up prizes at the Association of Landscape Contractors of Ireland annual gala awards’ ceremony held in Mullingar.

The County Antrim firm, which is one of the island’s largest landscape contractors, beat off competition from rival firms across Ireland to pick up the awards for best Private Garden £10,000 to £30,000, Best Commercial or Public Authority over £50,000 and Commercial or Public Authority Maintenance.

It also picked up an Award of Merit in the Private Gardens Under £10,000 and the Commercial and Public Authority Under £50,000 categories.

The awards, which aim to give industry standard recognition to firms, are judged by a team of independent landscaping experts.

Landscape Centre Managing Director Steven Thompson said: “We are both pleased and proud that our dedication to quality has once again been recognised at a major industry event such as this.

“To have five of our schemes singled out for awards has been a real honour and only serves to strengthen our resolve to continue to provide the most creative design and professional build service to our growing list of clients in both the private and commercial sectors.”

Included in the award-winning entries was a community garden designed for the Housing Executive in Dungiven as well as a new sensory garden sponsored by The Landscape Centre for Millquarter Primary School in Antrim.

The Landscape Centre, which is no longer connected to the firm of the same name at Donegore, are leading specialists in landscape design and build in both the private and commercial sectors, Last year the company further consolidated its place as an all-island market leader with the acquisition of Portadown based Bryan Hynds’ Services to further grow its maintenance offering.

/ends.

Cleaver Fulton Rankin, one of Northern Ireland’s leading corporate and commercial law firms, has been given the highest possible ranking for eight of its practice areas in the latest edition of the prestigious legal directory, Chambers UK.

Nine individuals at the firm in Bedford Street, Belfast, were also ranked by Chambers in the leading band.

Chambers has been publishing authoritative directories of the legal profession across the world for the last 20 years. The guides, which are published annually, are the result of rigorous and ongoing research – including interviews with thousands of lawyers across the world each year – and their contents are widely trusted for their objective assessment of firms’ legal expertise.

Cleaver Fulton Rankin, which was established in 1893, has a staff of around 80 and is focused primarily on company and commercial law, corporate finance, litigation, property law and private client services.

Within Northern Ireland, the firm is particularly well-known for its expertise in construction law, intellectual property, employment, banking, planning and environmental law, corporate recovery, dispute resolution, IT and charity law.

All 18 practice areas submitted by Cleaver Fulton Rankin for this year’s Chambers listing were ranked. The eight top ranked disciplines in Northern Ireland were administrative and public law, charities, construction, education, environment, family and matrimonial, planning and private client services.

A further eight areas were ranked in the second level band and the remaining two were placed in the third.

The firm’s offering in the area of real estate law was also ‘recommended’ by Chambers for the high level of client service provided.

Scott Kennedy, marketing partner with Cleaver Fulton Rankin, points out that practices are ranked by Chambers according to feedback from clients and professional peers. As a result, he says, the exemplary results recently achieved by Cleaver Fulton Rankin are confirmation of its industry-leading expertise and evidence of its relentless attention to detail:

“Each of our partners has achieved rankings in this prestigious directory and eight practice areas have been top ranked.  This is an excellent result which highlights the strength, depth and ongoing development of Cleaver Fulton Rankin as a leading law firm in Northern Ireland.

“Our technical expertise coupled with a continued investment in client relationships and a strong commercial awareness is clearly valued by the marketplace.  We are therefore delighted with the rankings.”

ENDS

A local motel is celebrating after topping a magnificent year of major awards success by reaching the final in three categories in the prestigious Digital Advertising Northern Ireland annual awards.

The multi award-winning four star Belmore Court and Motel in Enniskillen was told last week that all three of its entries has been shortlisted in the annual DANI Awards which are coveted by the biggest companies in the province.

The company, which has seen a marked increase in online bookings in the past year, is up for Belfast Viral Campaign, Best App and Best Online Strategy.

And Belmore has decided to mark its success by announcing a major winter sale, slashing prices on its superior and executive rooms for 500 nights to just £39 per room per night with continental breakfast.

The Motel has enjoyed a superb year of success at major awards ceremonies where it has been recognised consistently for its attention to quality service.

Earlier this year Belmore enjoyed the distinction of being the only independent business in Ireland to pick up a Silver Award in the Green Tourism Business Scheme.

The motel also left its larger competitors standing when it was awarded House Keeping Team of the Year and runner up in the Receptionist of the Year categories in the 2011 Northern Ireland Hotel Federation annual awards.

And next month, Sales and Marketing Manager Nina Kelly Kleine will be one of the finalists in the coveted Chartered Institute of Marketing Ireland Excellence awards.

Belmore owner Terry McCartney said: “As a small business up against much bigger companies, we are delighted to be singled out for success.

“Having all three of our entries shortlisted in DANI has topped what has been a very successful year for us.

“Our winter sale is our way of saying thank you to our customers and celebrating such a rewarding year which has helped us on our goal to becoming the best independent guest accommodation provider in Northern Ireland.

“It is difficult times and the increase in staycations has worked very well for us and we want to show that Enniskillen is an all year round venue with lots of good local independent shops as well as leading High Street stores and a wide range of excellent award winning restaurants.”

The £39 per superior or executive room per night offer applies to a minimum stay of two nights except for Sundays and runs from the beginning of November until March. Book online at www.motel.co.uk or call and speak to one of the friendly staff on 028 66302 6633.