More than 250 retailers attended the annual Checkout Best in Fresh Awards at The Shelbourne Hotel, the only awards ceremony to recognise excellence in fresh produce retailing.
The awards, now in their tenth year, reward and promote excellence in fresh food retailing in Ireland, with retailers of all sizes and formats honoured.
Among the big winners at this year’s event were the recently-revamped Garvey’s SuperValu Dingle, which took the award for Best Large Supermarket, while Best Medium Supermarket went to Tesco Park Pointe and Rushe’s SuperValu Killiney won the Best Small Supermarket Award.
The Best Forecourt honour went to Topaz City Avenue in Citywest, while Best Convenience Store was presented to Centra O’Connell St in Limerick.
“The stores acknowledged at the Checkout Best in Fresh Awards are the real standard bearers when it comes to excellence in fresh produce retailing,” said Checkout editor in chief Stephen Wynne-Jones.
“When it comes to fresh produce, the bar continues to be raised, and those retailers rewarded here today can truly be said to be amongst the best in Ireland, as well as in Europe.”
Other award winners at this year’s event included Applegreen, which was presented with the Best Multiple/Group Retailer award following its strongest annual performance to date; Lidl, which was named the Best Discount Retailer; and GS1 Ireland, which was awarded the Checkout Best in Fresh Industry Innovator award for its work on food traceability.
Commenting on its award, Mike Byrne, chief executive of GS1 Ireland said: "We are delighted to receive the Checkout Industry Innovator award for 2016. We greatly appreciate that the award recognises how GS1 Ireland has worked over a number of years with manufacturers, brand-owners and retailers to help them implement world-class traceability standards through the use of our barcodes and solutions. We are also proud of the role we have played in helping businesses to minimise the impact and cost incurred in the event of a product recall - either of their own or of their suppliers’ products.
“Building on this work, in the past year GS1 Ireland launched its fTrace solution to support companies wishing to provide customers with traceability data directly to the “palm of their hands” via their smart phones. Solutions such as fTrace bridge the gap between digital and instore product information while also supporting traceability and safe, reliable food chains”.
In addition, six supplier awards were presented, as voted for by the industry, with Glanbia Consumer Foods, Carroll’s, K&K Produce and Aryzta Food Solutions among the winners.
A full list of winners and finalists is featured below, while photos of the event can be found here.
© 2016 - Checkout Magazine
CHECKOUT BEST IN FRESH 2016: FULL LIST OF WINNERS
LARGE SUPERMARKET, SPONSORED BY COLD MOVE
WINNER
Garvey's SuperValu Dingle
FINALISTS
SuperValu Swords
Scally's SuperValu Clonakilty
SuperValu Blackrock
MEDIUM SUPERMARKET, SPONSORED BY INVEST NORTHERN IRELAND
WINNER
Tesco Park Pointe
FINALISTS
Ryan's SuperValu Grange
SuperValu Carndonagh
Eurospar Kilkenny
SMALL SUPERMARKET (4,000 to 10,000 sq ft.)
WINNER
Rushe's SuperValu Killiney
FINALISTS
Nagle's Eurospar Bruff
Ryan's SuperValu Kilmallock
Costcutter Birr
FORECOURT
WINNER
Topaz City Avenue
FINALISTS
Talty's Mace Lisseycasey
Applegreen Paulstown
Londis KCR
CONVENIENCE STORE
WINNER
Centra O'Connell St, Limerick
FINALISTS
Costcutter Dorset St
Fresh The Good Food Market Camden St
Kavanagh's Spar Ennis
BEST DISCOUNT RETAILER
WINNER
Lidl
MOST CREATIVE RETAILER
WINNER
Spar Merrion Row
FINALISTS
Mulrooney's Gala, Roscrea
Joyce's Knocknacarra
Mace Dry Arch Bonagee
BEST PRESENTATION
WINNER
Fresh: The Good Food Market, Grand Canal
FINALISTS
Tarpey's SuperValu, Cavan
SuperValu Lucan
McInerney's SuperValu Loughrea
Maxol Mace Maynooth
BEST NON-AFFILIATED STORE
WINNER
Joyce's Supermarket Knocknacarra
FINALISTS
Fresh: The Good Food Market, Grand Canal
Joyce's Supermarket, Headford
Cosgrave's - The Butcher Shop
LOCAL CHAMPION
WINNER
Pettitt's SuperValu St Aidan's
FINALISTS
Kavanagh's SuperValu Ballybofey
Meehan's Maxol Mace Tuam
Quish's SuperValu Tramore
BEST DELI
WINNER
Joyce's Knocknacarra
FINALISTS
Skelly's Costcutter Virginia
Spar Merrion Row
SuperValu Blackrock
BEST MEAT
WINNER
McKevitt's Costcutter, Thurles
FINALISTS
Tesco Bloomfields
Joyce's Supermarket, Headford
Quish's SuperValu Tramore
BEST SEAFOOD
WINNER
Scally's SuperValu Clonakilty
FINALISTS
O'Connor's SuperValu Westport
McInerney's SuperValu Loughrea
SuperValu Swords
BEST FRUIT AND VEG
WINNER
Garvey's SuperValu Dingle
FINALISTS
SuperValu Swords
Pettitt's SuperValu St Aidan's
McInerney's SuperValu Loughrea
BEST BAKERY
WINNER
Londis Adare
FINALISTS
SuperValu Killester
Buckley's SuperValu Mullingar
Barry Collins SuperValu Carrigaline
Murphy's Gala Kanturk
BEST FOOD TO GO
WINNER
Harkin's Gala, Ballybofey
FINALISTS
Topaz City Avenue
Spar Merrion Row
Sharkey's Spar Express, Tuam
BEST DAIRY & CHEESE
WINNER
Quish's SuperValu Ballincollig
FINALISTS
Twomey's SuperValu Deansgrange
SuperValu Knocklyon
Tesco Extra Maynooth
BEST MULTIPLE/GROUP RETAILER
WINNER
Applegreen
BEST BAKERY SUPPLIER, SPONSORED BY GALA
WINNER
Aryzta Food Solutions
FINALISTS
O'Brien Ingredients
Cloverhill Food Ingredients
BEST FRUIT AND VEG SUPPLIER
WINNER
K&K Produce
FINALISTS
Keelings
Donnelly Fruit & Veg
BEST MEAT SUPPLIER
WINNER
Carroll's
FINALISTS
Kepak
Templetuohy Foods
BEST SEAFOOD SUPPLIER
WINNER
Albatross Seafoods
FINALISTS
Morgans Fine Fish
Oceanpath Quality Seafood
BEST DAIRY SUPPLIER
WINNER
Glanbia Consumer Foods
FINALISTS
Glenisk
Clóna Dairy Products
BEST FRESH EQUIPMENT SUPPLIER
WINNER
Avery Berkel
FINALISTS
Apex Controls
Martin Food & Equipment
INDUSTRY INNOVATION AWARD
GS1 Ireland
