For the fourth year, 550 young people across Ireland are being offered the opportunity to immerse themselves in the business world. Musgrave is once again taking part in ‘Feeding Ireland’s Future’ an initiative that aims to facilitate youngsters in work experience and personal development.

This month Musgrave will be opening its doors to Ireland’s young and unemployed for workshops and experience in a real workplace.

The scheme hopes to help young people with business skills such as CV writing, interview techniques, developing a personal brand as well as day-to-day working life exposure. The participants will receive first-hand advice from some of our employees alongside working with some of Ireland’s other great brands.

Some of the young people who took part in Feeding Ireland’s Future in 2016, said it “gave an incredible confidence boost through the CV and Interview Feedback” and that they realised they “don’t have to have a degree to get on in life.”  99% of those who participated said they were more confident about applying for a job after taking part in Feeding Ireland’s Future.

Minister Varadkar who met with Musgrave and other companies involved said: “This is a brilliant scheme and I’m really pleased that more young people can get on-site experience and first-hand advice directly from companies this year. The best way to find work is to know what an employer is looking for. So this is a great example of partnership between State and private sector. I look forward to similar schemes being developed with other sectors in the future.”

Winners of Best Leadership Development Initiative

SuperValu and Centra implemented a nationwide Leadership Development Programme to further enable their business owners to identify innovative ways to exceed customer expectations. This high energy leadership programme is focused on releasing the teams’ ability  to achieve maximum business performance. The work delivered on a daily basis in developing our people in store by colleagues in HR and indeed other functions such as Sales and Trading was key.

 



Winner of Learning and Development Professional of the Year 2017

Anne Rigney was awarded this prestigious award for her excellence in the field  and outstanding commitment to champion the people development agenda in SuperValu and Centra. The judges highlighted Anne’s expertise in the subject matter and in depth understanding of emerging trends in learning and development. This is a very special award as it represents the views of the judges having reviewed entries across 20 different categories and several dozen organisations.

9th March 2017

Sustainably grown seaweed, whiskey flavoured popcorn and Cork’s finest gluten-free fresh chilli sauce are just some of the innovative products selected to join this year’s FoodService Academy. Run by Bord Bia and Musgrave MarketPlace, the programme aims to help participants grow sales within the foodservice, or out of home food, market. The initiative also offers the opportunity to achieve growth within Musgrave MarketPlace’s foodservice business, supplying over 6,000 customers each week ranging from hotels and restaurants to pubs and nursing homes.

Programme Overview

Now in its second year, FoodService Academy will take place over four months and comprise of both workshops and mentoring. Representatives from Musgrave MarketPlace will participate in the workshops, sharing invaluable practical insights and experience to help the companies better understand areas such as supplier set-up, food safety requirements and distribution model as well as sales and marketing support.

Launching this year’s programme, Maureen Gahan, Bord Bia’s Foodservice Specialist, said“Foodservice in Ireland offers major opportunities for suppliers providing innovative products and solutions to meet changing consumer needs. We’re delighted to roll out the second year of our ‘FoodService Academy’ initiative, supporting our belief that food businesses should increasingly look to the foodservice sector as a viable route to market. Now worth €7.5bn and forecast to grow to over €9bn by 2020, this route to market is delivering real growth and value for Irish food and drink companies.”

Sheena Forde, Trading Director, Musgrave MarketPlace added that, “Following on from the success of our FoodService Academy last year and that of the SuperValu Food Academy, we are now looking forward to the second year of our programme to support Irish foodservice producers through Musgrave MarketPlace. A number of the participating companies are Food Academy graduates so we are proud to be in a position to help grow their businesses by introducing their products to our foodservice customer base. As the largest and fastest growing wholesaler in Ireland, we are ideally placed to understand the needs of the foodservice market and, as an Irish family business, we are delighted to work with small Irish companies, many of which are family owned, to give them a head start in the market. The FoodService Academy programme offers a combination of commercial and marketing expertise and will provide invaluable customer insight for the companies involved. We would like to acknowledge the excellent support of Bord Bia throughout the development of this programme, their shared passion for supporting Irish food business has been evident throughout.’’

Participants for the 2017 programme were confirmed following a ‘Meet the Buyer’ event that took place earlier this year at Musgrave MarketPlace’s recently upgraded 75,000sqft Ballymun store. Companies had the opportunity to meet with and present their products to Musgrave MarketPlace Trading Managers, Category Managers and Leinster-based sales representatives. A total of eleven companies were selected to participate in the 2017 programme:

• Clarafields, a ‘Dulche de Leche’ / caramel sauce manufacturer based in Co. Offaly
• Fresh Soup Company, Meath based manufacturers of a range of soups and sauces, free from preservatives, artificial colours or flavours
• MSCVentures Ltd, producers of a range of fresh pestos, pastas and pizza doughs, based in Glanmire, Co. Cork
• Mungo Murphy’s Seaweed Co., harvesters of sustainably grown seaweed from Connemara
• Natasha’s Living Food, suppliers of a vegan and raw food snack range
• Kildare based Nutmost, producers of a range of activated nut-based snack products
• Popsy Daisy, a Dublin producer of gourmet caramel popcorn using the best quality ingredients from local producers. Flavours include Teeling’s Whiskey Salted Caramel and Apple Crumble.
• Cork’s Rebel Chilli, for their alternative range of gluten free, fresh chilli sauces.
• Rosie&JimDublin, a 100% gluten free plant producing whole chicken fillets in breaded coatings and employing over 30 staff
• Sea of Vitality, an innovative Dungarvan based company producing a range of award winning, value added seaweed based food products and run by husband and wife team.
• Wicklow Rapeseed Oils, for their range of standard and flavoured culinary oils made from rapeseed grown on farm in the Co. Wicklow