With over three-and-a-half decades in the business, Fiveways remains at the cutting edge of grocery retail in Newry. With its prime location on the busy Armagh Road, it caters to a huge swathe of local residents, as well as countless staff seeking a variety of options for their breakfast or lunch.

With an expansive housing development being built near Fiveways, their customer base will only continue to grow, while a strong commuter trade is also of critical importance to the store.

Coming out of covid, the management at Fiveways believed it was time to update their store, and set about introducing a host of modern counters and facilities, while also extending and opening their exciting new 100-seater restaurant – ‘The Diner’.

As Manager Helen Meehan tells NR, they wanted to improve the overall customer experience.

“We have been very busy at Fiveways. We have just completed a significant extension and revamp to our store over this past 12 months,” said Helen.

“This allowed us to redevelop the shop entrance, relocate and expand our Off Sales, increase the number of car parking spaces, open up our sales floor, open a new ice cream counter and 100-seater restaurant.

“As well as the extension, we wanted the existing store to have a ‘new’ feel. In order to achieve this we installed new deli, hot food and butchery counters, new freezers, refrigeration and check outs.

“Many of our customers have remarked that it feels like a whole new store and they are delighted with the changes made – this for us is everything, customers are truly the heart of Fiveways.”

This focus on the customer has long been a mantra for the team, believing this sets them apart from other retailers in many instances. As a family business with its roots in the local area, Fiveways has fostered a local atmosphere throughout the years no matter the size of the store, with staff taking great pride in their work and making sure customers leave happy and get what they need.

In addition to the expansive work carried out in the store, upgrades and improvements were made to their hugely popular fuel forecourt, with new fuel tanks and pumps installed with OPT available 24 hours a day. The forecourt is a modern, 24-hour, eight-pump forecourt with state-of-the-art facilities.

“What attracts people to Fiveways’ forecourt is our attended pumps, competitive pricing and Texaco branding, as well as everything that Fiveways Supermarket has to offer,” added Helen.

READ THE FULL FEATURE ON FIVEWAYS NEWRY IN THE FEBRUARY-MARCH ISSUE OF NEIGHBOURHOOD RETAILER HERE

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Her prize-winning entry from this year’s 70th Texaco Children’s Art Competition was displayed at the thrilling event.

Travelling at the invitation of Japan’s International Foundation for Arts and Culture, Charley attended the opening of the exhibition, which took place recently at one of the nation’s most prestigious galleries, Japan’s National Art Centre in Tokyo.

At the event, described as a ‘global showcase for the world’s best young artistic talent’, Charley’s work – entitled ‘Anticipation’ – was exhibited alongside the top 500 artworks selected from up to 15,000 works submitted by students worldwide.

Other 2024 Texaco winning artworks displayed were ‘Man to Machine’ by Donegal student, Weronica Jarosinska (age 16), a pupil at Loreto Secondary School Letterkenny; ‘Best Friends’ by Clare student, Eimear Fitzgerald (16), from Ennis Art School and ‘Unconditional Love’ by Galway student, Darragh Granahan (15), from Gort Community School.

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Her winning work, for which she receives a prize of €1,500, is entitled ‘Anticipation’ and is a painstakingly detailed portrait study in coloured pencils.

In choosing it as the overall prize winner in the competition, Final Adjudicator and Chairman of the judging panel, Gary Granville, Professor Emeritus of Education at the National College of Art and Design, described Charley’s artwork as “an exceptionally well executed portrait, that tells of an ‘aged serenity’, of a full life with a wealth of experience and wisdom”.

“There is a subversive energy, irrepressible optimism and underlying joy in the image that belies the stereotypical portrayal of aging. This wonderful work of art well-deserves the top award in this year’s Texaco Children’s Art Competition,” Professor Granville added.

No stranger to the competition, Charley was also the overall competition winner last year as well as winning Special Merit Awards in both 2020 and 2021.

The middle child of three, Charley first discovered her passion for art at a young age and went on to develop an ability to express herself more through her art works as she progressed through grammar school. From an artistic family, older sister Carrie has won numerous Special Merit Awards in the competition, whilst younger brother Rory has received a Commendation. With one year left to complete in school, Charley believes art will play some role in her future down the line.

The inspiration for her prize-winning portrait came when she discovered a photo of an old woman and felt the emotion in her face would be fascinating to bring to life.

“I like working with portraits and when I saw this photo the detailed expression on the woman’s face jumped out at me immediately. I knew it would be a challenging and interesting artwork to take on,” said Charley.

In winning the prestigious overall prize and first place in the Category A age group, Charley and her fellow winners fought off the challenge from the young artists across Ireland who took part in the competition. Amongst them are the 1st, 2nd and 3rd place winners and the 15 Special Merit awards recipients in each of seven categories for which prizes are presented, including a category reserved for special needs children.

The Texaco Children’s Art Competition is popularly regarded as the longest-running sponsorship in the history of arts sponsoring in Ireland, with an unbroken history that dates back to the very first competition held in 1955. This year, as has been the case throughout its life, it has been a platform on which young artists have had their talents recognised and a springboard on which many have risen to national prominence.

Aside from giving students the space to give expression to their talent and skill, the competition has focused a spotlight on the quality of art teaching in Irish schools and the importance that the educational establishment attaches to the subject of art education.

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Henderson Retail is one of Northern Ireland’s largest independent fuel site operators. EUROSPAR Kilkeel Greencastle switched this month, while SPAR Musgrave will be joining in October.

Strong relationship

Ron Whitten chief financial officer, Henderson Group, said, “Our strong relationship with Valero has grown over the years and we thought that the time was right to strengthen our network of Texaco branded sites. We were impressed with the fuel package on offer as it suited the needs of the company.”

Busy Fishing Town

EUROSPAR Kilkeel Greencastle is situated in a busy fishing town with strong farming links and sees circa 12,000 customers visit in a normal week. Due to a number of caravan parks close by, the site can see up to an increase of 30 percent in sales and footfall during the summer months. In 2015, the store was refurbished from a small convenience store to a 5,180 square foot EUROSPAR, doubling in size and giving the local community a one-stop shop that includes a Post Office, deli, butchers, Subway and goods from local artisan suppliers. The staff are also very passionate about raising money for local charities and since 2015 have raised over £75,000.

Wider catchment area

SPAR Musgrave serves a neighboring hospital and has direct links to the main route in and out of Belfast. It sees a much wider catchment of customers but the team are still well known for going the extra mile to deliver a great service.

Andrew Cox, Valero’s director sales and marketing, said, “We are incredibly proud that Henderson Retail have chosen to switch another two of their sites to the Texaco brand. They’re a significant player in the Northern Ireland market and we’re delighted that our relationship with them continues to grow, and they know Valero can be relied upon to support their business with security of supply, quality fuels and an industry-leading delivery service.”

123 years of Hendersons

Henderson Retail owns and operates over 95 SPAR and EUROSPAR stores in Northern Ireland. Henderson Retail forms part of the Henderson Group, which began its operations in the retail grocery business back in 1897 selling butter, cheese and eggs at premises on the Old Lodge Road in Belfast.

Valero Energy

Valero Energy Ltd, a subsidiary of Valero Energy Corporation, markets fuel in the UK and Ireland under the Texaco brand. There are around 750 Texaco-branded service stations in the UK and 145 Texaco-branded service stations in Ireland. The company owns and operates Pembroke Refinery in south west Wales, which is one of Europe’s largest and most complex refineries, has ownership interests in four major pipelines, eight fuel terminals and a 14,000-barrel-per-day aviation fuels business.

A Fortune 50 company based in San Antonio, Texas, Valero has approximately 10,000 employees, is an independent petroleum refiner and ethanol producer, and its assets include 15 petroleum refineries with a combined throughput capacity of approximately 3.1 million barrels per day and 11 ethanol plants with a combined production capacity of 1.45 billion gallons per year.

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