The couple have been focusing on food to go for more than 20 years now in their three Musgrave SuperValu Centra forecourts close to the north coast, at Strand Road in Derry, Coleraine and Ballykelly, as they explain in a profile in our forthcoming edition of Neighbourhood Retailer.

“What we felt we needed to do was make it a point of difference,” Donna says.

“A lot of people were doing what we were doing as far as forecourt retailing was concerned, but we wanted to make a point of difference and we felt this was an opportunity to go down the road to producing our own homemade food.

“We’d been making our own sandwiches in-store since we opened the stores, but we were always wanting to improve our range and our product.

Made today, gone today

“Now we put our product – our sandwiches and our salads – on the shelves and we say ‘Made today – gone today’, in that they’re going to be sold within 24 hours, because we want to retain that quality.”

The couple have just completed the third stage of their production kitchen and are looking forward to developing their range even further.

“We had been making our sandwiches and salads in the shops and then we decided that the best way for us to retain our quality was to have one central distribution hub. So we built the first stage of our production kitchen in Ballykelly and now we have just completed the third stage of our production kitchen,” Donna says.

“It employs about 15 people for the production alone and we call it Bring Good Food Home – ‘From our Kitchen to Your Kitchen’ It produces our ready meals. ‘Moran’s Makes its Own’ is our mantra.

“We do all our own sandwiches, make all our own mixes, make all the food for the deli, so our production kitchen can supply each store with all our deli food and with all the sandwiches that we sell off the shelf as well as salad ranges and the likes of stews and curries.

Sunday roast

“We make all our Sunday roast dinners for deli customers to come and buy from the deli on a Sunday and we also have them to take home as well, which means we have the spider fridges filled, so you can just lift your dinner, bring it home and heat it.”

Donna says their chefs are constantly developing new lines.

“Developing the third stage of our production kitchen has led us to be able to expand our equipment and be able to produce more new lines,” she says.

“So we’ve a new healthy option coming out now, with four new products coming in our salad range. There are going to be a lot of different salads – it will go according to what the season is.

“We like to think that we’re taking the hassle out of mealtimes and promoting no pots, no pans, no washing – because all our dishes are all ovenproof and microwave proof.”

Read the June/July issue of Neighbourhood Retailer for the full story.