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With an expected deal value of £500,000, the range has been piloted at McGoveran’s Centra in the Cathedral Quarter, Belfast and will be rolled out in stores across NI over the next six months.

Planet Café is a heat and go range designed to be cooked in its packaging, with products inspired by tastes of the world including tóstas, burritos and paninis with vegetarian and vegan options available.

Delivered frozen directly to the retailers from the Musgrave warehouse, the products can be defrosted by staff as and when they need them, cutting down on waste. Once defrosted the products have a four-day shelf life and can also be heated in store to be hot held for 90 minutes providing customers with a hot option on the move.

The launch is part of Musgrave’s ongoing partnership with Warrenpoint-based DELI LITES. Since the partnership began in 2012, the DELI LITES range has sold more than £10 million worth of products across Musgrave NI’s portfolio of stores.

In 2019, Musgrave extended its collaboration with the company to launch its own brand of food-to-go products, Fresh For You, which has over 30 product lines including sandwiches, wraps, salads and ‘heat-to-eat’ options.

Commenting on the deal, Julie Cherry, Trading Director at Musgrave NI said: “Providing convenient and tasty food-to-go products for our busy customers is a priority for us and we are excited to launch the brand new Planet Café range in our stores.

“The pilot at McGoveran’s Centra in Belfast’s Cathedral Quarter is proving to be a success and is extremely beneficial during the busy lunch time period to ensure continuous availability. As we roll out to our retailers around Northern Ireland, we expect its success to continue.

“Our ten-year partnership with DELI LITES is a sign of Musgrave’s commitment to supporting local suppliers and stocking local, quality produce. As a family-owned company, we are continually on the lookout for new local high-quality food and drinks brands to add to our shelves to support our local economy.”

Barbara Hawkins, Key Account Manager, DELI LITES, said: “Our Planet Café brand has been nearly two years in development, and we are excited to launch the range throughout Musgrave’s extensive portfolio of stores. Heated in the packaging, the products are all precisely portioned allowing retailers to accurately calculate their margins, which can be a challenge with deli counters.

“Easily heated, they also reduced the time required to provide hot food options at deli counters and can be hot held for up to 90 minutes to allow retailers to stock hot food options even when their deli has closed.

“We have seen an increase in demand for a hot food offering which suggests people are looking for affordable luxuries. Whether it is people working from home, in the office or simply those who fancy a tasty lunch treat, Planet Café is there to meet this demand, offering convenience with tasty flavours from around the world.”

Commenting on the pilot, Donagh McGoveran from McGoveran’s Centra in Cathedral Quarter said: “The Planet Café products have been a runaway success in our store with customers commenting on the excellent quality. From a store point of view, the products have a strong margin at a reasonable price point and the ‘thaw and serve’ mechanism helps us reduce wastage. As the product is cooked in its packaging, each product already has all the necessary legal and mandatory allergen information on it and makes it perfect for our grab and go counters.”

Caption: Musgrave NI Trading Manager, Michelle McDonnell; Centra Cathedral Quarter Deli Manager, Jonah Gardner; and DELI LITES National Account Manager, Barbara Hawkins launch the new Planet Café range at the city centre store.

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Open Thursday through Monday from 7:30am – 4pm, Neighbourhood Cafe brings specialty coffee, a quality brunch offering and uniquely warm customer service to the area.

Neighbourhood is a partnership between Oisin McEvoy and Ryan Crown and represents a dream come true for both owners.

“The coffee scene in Belfast has grown so much in the last decade, and we’re excited to be part of that and add our own voice to the already amazing community,” Oisin McEvoy says.

“To find a location in such a creative and developing part of Belfast was an opportunity we couldn’t ignore.”

Mr McEvoy brings a wealth of operational knowledge, having managed Established Coffee over the last three years, while Ryan Crown, who runs New York based design studio Crown Creative, brings creative and marketing expertise to the brand.

Neighbourhood is the first café in Northern Ireland to partner with the highly respected Galway-Based coffee roaster, Calendar Coffee, and will serve the growing student and working community gathering in Belfast’s Cathedral Quarter. The business will also create 10 jobs.

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Delivered by Starticus in partnership with Derry City and Strabane District Council, LEVELUP 2021 was a two-day hybrid event which took place on 21st and 22nd April, looking at innovation, ideas and inspiration from around the world.

The event was part of the programme for Enterprise Week Derry Strabane and explored how people, both locally and internationally, have created opportunity, economic growth and initiated real change.

The LEVELUP pitch competition, with sponsorship from RealTime Recruitment, saw 12 NI startups pitch virtually to a panel of startup industry pros and investors including Beth Glenfield, Scout for Ada Ventures, Audrey Osbourne, Investor at Techstart Ventures LLP, Nico Albanese, Senior Associate at Ascension Ventures and local star Angel Investor Mary McKenna.

Hill Street Hatch is a pop-up space in Belfast’s Cathedral Quarter which offers a creative partnership for entrepreneurs in the Belfast hospitality scene to test and launch new concepts and ideas.

LEVELUP judge Judge Naomi Timperley praised the winning pitch: “Love love love this concept – great pitch and passion.

“A great idea to ‘try before you buy’ for the hospitality industry. So many restaurant concept ideas crash and burn and this is a way of trialling the concepts first and building an audience.”

Ema O’Kane and Ryan Crown, co-founders of Hill Street Hatch added “We are so delighted to be named the winners of the pitch competition. We’ve loved creating Hill Street Hatch and are so excited for the future and the ways in which we will be able to support and work alongside hospitality entrepreneurs in Northern Ireland!

“We’re really grateful to LEVELUP for seeing the potential in our startup and for choosing us for the award.”

Having worked alongside some of the of the world’s best hospitality brands and groups in New York and the US over the last 5 years, Hill Street Hatch recognised that the process of launching hospitality ventures is outdated and the risks (such as exorbitant rent, long term leases, set up costs, design, marketing etc) are now higher than ever and accelerated even more due to the global pandemic.

Hill Street Hatch aims to remove those traditional barriers to entrepreneurship like exorbitant rent, overheads, and pressure and replace them with resources and creative solutions including a physical pop up space currently in Belfast’s Cathedral Quarter.

You can catchup on LEVELUP and all the events from last week’s Enterprise Week Derry Strabane at derrystrabane.com/ewcatchup

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