There’s little doubt that the recession is taking its toll and shaping the fortunes of the retail sector generally in the process, but for one County Down-based family business at least, the future looks bright…

TS Foods, based in the market town of Castlewellan, is a well-kept local secret – it’s an industrious and efficient indigenous concern producing a strong portfolio of staple family foods from scratch at its purpose-built facility on Mary Street.

The company, which was founded in the same location more than three decades ago, has enjoyed double-digit growth over the last two years despite the harsh realities of the current economic downturn. And while commercial director, Joanne Molloy concedes that such performance is a little out-of-keeping with trends in the retail markets generally, she says it’s a little more typical of the situation in the food sector:

“In fact, if we look back over the last 30 years, we’ve actually done particularly well during downturns because our products are well-suited”, adds Joanne “They’re well priced, back-to-basics food and extremely popular with families who are watching what they spend.”

That product range will be familiar to many. The firm supplies its range through the big multiples across Northern Ireland and to the various symbol outlets run by the Henderson and Musgrave Groups. In the south, its customers include the Superquinn and Aldi chains and in Great Britain, its products are on the shelves at Morrisons and Asda.

TS Foods is the name behind the popular Tony’s Chippy brand – a practical range of battered sausages, pasties and burgers which is currently supplied to, among others, Tesco and Sainsbury in Northern Ireland and Asda and Morrison’s in Great Britain.

But where the firm has really made a name for itself is in the production of a varied range of quality stuffing products. It’s the leading manufacturer of stuffing in Northern Ireland and its entire range has just been rebranded under the supervision of newly-appointed product development manager, Brenda Kelleghan, who comes to TS Foods with a successful track record in food product development, most recently with Green Isle.

Between the end of October and Christmas just gone, the firm saw a 250 per cent increase in the stuffing products sent out to customers from its Castlewellan plant. It’s a huge increase in volume and while many would struggle to accommodate that seasonal lift, the Co. Down producer is well experienced and is able to cope with demand, making it a popular option among retailers.

FOUNDERS
Joanne and her brother David Steele, operations director, are responsible for the daily operation of TS Foods. It was their parents, Tony and Ann Steele, who founded the business in 1978 and who are still active there today , Tony as chairman and Ann as head of new product development.

Neither David nor Joanne was initially involved in the family business – David is a design engineer and Joanne is a Chartered accountant and both have led varied careers outside the food manufacturing sector. A couple of years ago, however, both of them felt that it was time for a change:

“We were both ready to do something different, we’d already decided that we wanted to run our own business and we were actually looking for a business to buy or set up at the time”, recalls Joanne. “A few things were happening here at the time, mum and dad were looking to take a reduced role in the business and offered us the opportunity to take over”.

“Since then, we’ve been putting a lot of our time into getting to know the business, our customers and the sector in which we operate. We have also spent a great deal of time building up an understanding of the brand and what consumers want”, adds Joanne
There are 45 full and part-time staff at the Castlewellan plant, which has had to grow substantially over the last three decades to accommodate production demands and technological advancement – as David explains it, they’ve progressively had to buy the back gardens of 14 of their near neighbours!

But the unique ethos of a family-run business is evident in the way in which David and Joanne talk about their staff, some of whom have been there for more than 25 years:

“There’s certainly a great sense of loyalty”, says David. “We have a lot of long-standing members of staff here and they have valuable experience which makes all the difference when it comes down to ensuring the quality of the product is consistently high.”

POSITIVE
Going forward, David and Joanne agree that they are keen for TS Foods to continue in the same “positive vein” that’s it been enjoying of late:
“We want to grow with our existing customers and we want to find more in the various markets that we’re in, particularly the Republic of Ireland [where sales have fallen in recent years] and in Great Britain”, Joanne add. “We’re currently looking to recruit a business development manager for the south of Ireland and we’re also planning to add a procurement and stock control manager here [in Castlewellan], so the strategy for the company is clearly one of growth.”

The company’s participation in the Tesco Taste Northern Ireland event at Custom House Square in Belfast in September is indicative of that expansive mindset – more than 5000 samples of TS Foods product portfolio were handed out to the public during the two-day event.
“We came away with such a buzz and lots of very positive feedback from the people we spoke to”, recalls Joanne. “That was really our first direct personal contact with customers and I think we’d like to do more focus groups with consumers and increase our contact with them generally in the future.”

Agreeing, David adds:
“There’s a very vibrant retail market out there, people are becoming much more interested in food, they’re no longer willing to accept the first thing that they see and there seems to be a strong emphasis now on cooking food from scratch, which is where a lot of our products score well – the growth in our stuffing range, for example, is a direct result of that as people look to compliment the protein and add flavour to their traditional Sunday roast dinner.”

For the future, says David, the emphasis will remain on quality and on ensuring the reliability of the TS Foods and Tony’s Chippy brands:
“We’ve been here for more than 30 years and through that time, we’ve always maintained our reputation for quality”, he adds. “If it’s not right, then it won’t be leaving here, it’s as simple as that. We have a simple motto in this business, shared by all of the family, that we’ll never produce a product that we wouldn’t be happy to eat ourselves.”.

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