Stakeholder

There was nothing to fear this Halloween weekend in Sainsbury’s Ballymena as the store hosted its first ever Food Festival.

The spook-tacular event on Friday 30^th October gave shoppers the chance to try the very best of local produce. As the event fell in National Sausage Week Ballymena’s own Doherty & Gray who recently won a Sainsbury’s own Brand Supplier Award had a major role to play along with 40 other local suppliers.

Bea Cox, store manager at Sainsbury’s Ballymena said, “We were delighted to host our very first food festival on Friday as it offered an extra bit of fun for shoppers over the Halloween weekend. There were lots of treats and tasty samples from local suppliers and indeed suppliers of Sainsbury’s own brand products. We were also delighted to welcome some familiar faces including Ballymena’s own Jenny Bristow and renowned chef Paul Rankin who was promoting his range of new pies.”

Sainsbury’s was the first multiple to stock this new selection pies from Millar Savoury Foods created by Paul Rankin and has also introduced them in Scottish stores.

Michael McCambley, commercial buyer for Sainsbury’s added, “This type of event is an excellent way to show our shoppers how many great products we source in Northern Ireland and how much good food there is available locally. We had over 40 suppliers at this event with food, drink and a variety of snack foods and we were absolutely delighted with the response from customers.”

Customers were also given the opportunity to try a range of ‘switch and save’ recipes. Switch and save encourages shoppers to switch to own brand products to make cooking healthy nutritious meals more cost effective.