Northern Ireland’s Emerging Charcuterie Scene
Long renowned for the superb quality of its livestock grazing on its lush green fields, Northern Ireland is now becoming celebrated for the wonderful cured meats and charcuterie made from that livestock. Over the last decade, a growing movement of talented artisan producers including Broughgammon Farm, Corndale Farm and Ispini Charcuterie has been perfecting their craft, creating award-winning charcuterie which is now in demand across Ireland and the UK.
Whether it’s rich Salami, Chorizo, Coppa, Pancetta, Lomo, Bresaola, Bacon or Nduja – an Italian-style soft salami that is seasoned with sweet fire-roasted red peppers, spicy chilli and lots of black pepper, the range is increasing all the time, generating yet another success story for Northern Ireland’s acclaimed food scene.
Allied to this superb range of charcuterie, craft producers are also offering an array of delicious accompaniments, such as chutneys, jams, preserves and drizzles.
Broughgammon Farm
Contact: Charlie & Becky Cole
Email: info@broughgammon.com
Mobile: +44 7435 765845
Just three miles from the rugged North Antrim coastline and nestled between the towns of Ballycastle and Bushmills, multi award-winning farm, Broughgammon Farm provides ethical and sustainable produce. Charlie Coles’ family set up the farm back in 2011, to combat the unnecessary waste of dairy farms, deciding to rear male kid goats themselves and serving up delicious and healthy cabrito kid goat meat.
For more than 10 years now, the company has branched out into rearing free-range rose veal and also seasonal wild game. Two years ago, Broughgammon also began producing vegetables and edible flowers. As a member of the Économusée network, Broughgammon now has its own artisan on-site butchery, where the team teaches others the art of butchery and handling wild game. There are also foraging courses, which are run in conjunction with Forage Ireland throughout the year; herbalist workshops; seasonal cookery classes and fermenting workshops.
Between Friday and Sunday, the company opens its doors to the public and serves up innovative baked goods, which are created using foraged finds, seasonal produce and edible flowers from Broughgammon’s garden.
The café, in addition to serving up a brilliant range of baked goods and foraged finds, also offers a terrific range of great coffees, a very tasty lunch menu and the best of Northern Irish and Irish produce from their farm shop. For people from afar, the company also delivers its meat boxes all over Ireland and the UK.
Products include meat boxes, free-range rose veal and peppercorn salami and free-range rose veal and coriander salami and goat bacon.
Corndale Farm
Established in 2012 Alastair Crown was the first person to produce charcuterie in Northern Ireland using the pork from his herd of free-range Saddleback pigs. Ten years later a major expansion being finalised at Corndale Farm in Limavady will enable the company to triple the processing capability of its multi-award-winning cured meats and create new employment opportunities in the area. The farm-based company, a pioneer of chorizo, salami and other cured meats in Northern Ireland, has recently moved into and kitted out a new 3,000 sq ft factory close to its existing free-range pig farm in the Co Derry town.
The significant investment includes the latest processing, air drying, maturing, storage and vacuum packaging systems for its wide range of charcuterie in line with stringent food hygiene rules. In addition to the investment in capability, Alastair has created a new branding to support its market growth plans.
The award-winning range includes chorizo beer sticks, varieties of fennel, garlic and black pepper, venison salami, coppa, nduja, lomo and bresaola, usually associated with butchery businesses in France, Spain and Italy, as well air-dried Irish Dexter meat. In addition, Alastair has invested in his existing free-range pig farm to ensure an increase in the supply of premium meat for the expanded processing operation.
Corndale’s strategic investment in hygiene standards is well-ahead of export licensing rules particularly for the EU, reflecting the company’s focus on growing its existing business in Northern Ireland and especially outside the region.
Corndale currently has a strong customer base among delis, farm shops, butchers, greengrocers and leading restaurants and hotels across Northern Ireland and are keen to grow this and to explore the substantial business opportunities now developing for its artisan products in Great Britain and the Republic of Ireland.
Contact: Alastair Crown
Email: info@corndalefarm.com
Mobile: +44 7843 094876
Ke Nako Biltong
Contact: Ilse van Staden
Email: kenakobiltong@hotmail.com
Mobile: +44 7846 992410
Culmore Organically Reared Beef is the raw ingredient in this super South-African inspired meaty snack. Originally designed as a portable preserve for bushmen, it is now made in Northern Ireland by couple Ilse and Alanagh van Staden, a qualified chef, butcher and rugby player from Pretoria. What started in 2012 has become a huge success story even featuring on Tom Kerridge’s Top of the Shop programme for BBC.
Ke Nako means “It’s Time” in Tswana, one of South Africa’s official languages; time for Northern Ireland to have its own dried cured meat products made with 100 per cent organically reared beef from Culmore Farm in Co. Antrim. They are made at Ballylagan Organic Farm in Straid, Co. Antrim.
They include Biltong, Chilli Bites, Droewors – a type of sausage made from ground beef in a lamb casing as well as Stokkies – a highly addictive protein snack.
In 2021, Ke Nako won three major awards in the prestigious British Charcuterie Awards.
The artisan business, based on an organic farm near Ballyclare in county Antrim, won a gold award in its category and was named as Best in Class for Snacking Charcuterie for its unique “Pain in the Hole” Biltong, a spicy collaboration with Belfast’s Blackfire Hot Sauce. Ke Nako also gained a silver medal for its original biltong.
In 2022 Ke Nako won a major UK title for its classic biltong as a tasty and healthy snack and awards for three other products in a competition held in association with the influential Charcuterie Board. Ke Nako’s popular biltong won the top Snack category in the competition and the company’s chilli biltong, droewors and garlic biltong gained the other awards in the same category.
Ispini Charcuterie
Based at Aughnacloy in county Tyrone, Ispini Charcuterie, a farm-based business run by siblings Jonny, a pig farmer, and Janice Cuddy, is an award-winning developer of a range of cured meats including salami, chorizo, bresaola and innovative chorizo beer sticks.
The siblings started Ispini Charcuterie in 2016 and specialise in producing small batches of air-dried and cured meat products with complete control from cutting, blending, and curing to hanging – a truly artisan experience. Jonny studied charcuterie and the School of Artisan Food at Welbeck in Nottinghamshire with Chris Moorby, the charcuterie expert and master butcher at the school.
Ispini – the name is Irish for sausage – has won a series of awards for its range of original Irish charcuterie including the UK Great Taste Awards and the BBC Food and Farming Awards.
Ispini has developed business across Northern Ireland and with high-end UK retailers.
In 2020, Ispini opened a new deli in the foodie village of Moira in Co Down where you can buy their bestsellers such as fennel salami, coppa, beer stix and garlic and black pepper salami. They also sell crackers, chutney and anything else you need to enjoy charcuterie and cheese boards.
Contact: Jonny Cuddy
Email: jonny@ispini.co.uk
Kennedy Bacon
Email: info@kennedybacon.co.uk
Tel: +44 28 8224 2658
Mobile: +44 7818 605689
The Kennedy family have been farming in the scenic hills of Glenhordial near Omagh in county Tyrone since the 1940s with years of experience rearing and fattening pigs. Mervyn Kennedy is an experienced pig farmer and an award-winning producer of a successful range of dry-cured bacon, gammon and pork sausages.
Kennedy Bacon offers retail and food service customers a comprehensive range of quality dry-cured products which are essentially handcrafted under Mervyn’s supervision from pork and bacon sourced from his own pigs.
The range includes dry cured cooked ham, roasted bacon flakes and roasted bacon bites which are ideal for other food manufacturers including pizza and sandwich manufacturers as well as home cooks. In addition to selling products at farmers’ markets, especially in Northern Ireland, Kennedy Bacon supplies a range of bacon to major supermarkets such as Sainsbury’s, Eurospar and SuperValu stores across Northern Ireland in addition to delis, farm shops and independent grocers. It also supplies products to retailers in the Republic of Ireland.
A third-generation farmer, Mr Kennedy launched the bacon processing business in a farm diversification project. He concentrated on developing his own dry-curing technique to give his products a distinctive taste. He follows his own recipe from personal experience of rearing his own pigs. He also slices, prepares and packages the bacon to ensure consistent quality and provenance.
Moorcroft Foods
Born in 1898 in the small farming town of Cradock, South Africa to a family of British settlers – Cecil “Fenner” Moorcroft joined the family meat business from a young age. Over the following years, he built up a wealth of expertise in the livestock trade and became a well-known name amongst farmers all over South Africa.
Five generations later and back home in Britain, Gavin Moorcroft continues to carry out Fenner’s legacy of providing wholesome top-quality, traditional South African style biltong and meat snacks that are tasty, nutritious and ethically sourced from the highest grade livestock – just like Fenner did!
Biltong is a traditional air-dried South African meat snack made and approved in the UK.
“We use the finest quality beef from farmers using natural and traditional farming methods and all our meat has received the AAA UK Stamp of approval.”
Strips of meat are prepared and spiced with our unique blend of seasoning. The meat is then marinated using a highly efficient, modern and effective process ensuring the consistent absorption of our secret flavours. Once the meat strips are hung to dry in custom-designed drying rooms using state-of-the-art, energy-efficient drying equipment the magic begins to happen.
A week later, the biltong product is ready for our customers. It is then sliced, securely packaged and ready to be enjoyed by the whole family!
Contact: Gavin Moorcroft / Ela Gilmour
Mobile: +44 7555 478350 / +44 7933 107579
Email: info@moorcroftfoods.co.uk
gavin@moorcroftfoods.co.uk / ela@moorcroftfoods.co.uk
