Aisle be Yours...

On this grey and miserable Monday morning, we all need a little pick me up. So here's a story we fell in love with last week, as we helped our client Asda celebrate Valentine's Day ...

Aisle be Yours…

“The Secret of a happy marriage- Respect and Genuine Love”

Having launched a search to find the longest married couple in the local area, Asda Coleraine was delighted to welcome Robert and Margaret, known as Ivy, Kirkpatrick into the store to tell their story. 

As regular customers in Asda Coleraine, every Tuesday since it opened in 2005, Robert and Ivy are well known to the store’s colleagues who delighted in celebrating their love with gifts including flowers, champagne and a shopping voucher. 

Married for 62 years, and having met several years before that, Robert and Ivy have lived in the centre of Coleraine since the 1960s. However, their love story began in London, when Robert spotted Ivy working in the Maypole Grocery Store.

“My brother also worked in the store,” said Robert, “so I asked him to find out if she liked the look of me and if she was interested in a date. Luckily she was, and we had our first date at the local picture house.”  

The romance went on to blossom from that moment and today the diamond couple have nine children, 25 grandchildren and 18 great-grandchildren.  Robert says, “We have a great system – Ivy does all the birthday cards and presents, and I look after Christmas!”

The couple describe their greatest adventure as an exciting trip to California around 15 years ago. Staying with friends they took in the sights around Los Angeles, San Diego and Palm Springs describing it as “a wonderful trip they’ll never forget.”

The couple were invited into Asda Coleraine on Valentine’s Day to receive their gifts from general store manager Roy Warke and community life champion Sheila Palmer. On receiving the news from Asda that they had been recognised as Coleraine’s longest married couple, Robert said he was “delighted and it was a lovely surprise.”

Roy Warke said, “It’s been wonderful to celebrate Valentine’s Day with Robert and Ivy as their love truly has stood the test of time. As regular customers to the store we’re all inspired by their story, and it’s particularly fantastic, and fitting, to hear that they met in a grocery store! We wish the couple many more happy years together.”

Finally, on the secret of such a long and happy marriage, Robert had a simple message saying, “It’s all based around respect. Respect and genuine love.” 

Top chefs, rugby players, chicken wings and a celebrity bake off...it could only be Balmoral Show 2013!

The Morrows team were out in force for the eagerly anticipated Balmoral Show 2013 at the new Balmoral Park – and the most important event in Northern Ireland’s farming calendar certainly didn’t disappoint!

We enthusiastically donned our wellies to work alongside our agri-food clients over the three days of the Show. Here are some of our best bits...

Winging it with Moy Park...we worked with Moy Park to bring a huge two storey stand (with stairs...it will be an escalator next year) to the NI Food Pavilion. Visitors’ taste buds were tickled with a range of delicious hot and spicy chicken wings and succulent breaded chicken goujons which were sampled on stand. Moy Park’s Group Executive Chef, Aaron Dixon, was on hand during the Show and hosted a series of cookery demonstrations on the Moy Park stand to show visitors how to make a selection of mouth-watering chicken dishes – we have no excuses now!

Ready Steady Bake! What could be better than an Olympic legend, three rugby stars and mountains of cupcakes? We worked with Dale Farm to deliver a celebrity bake off – which pitted Dame Mary Peters against Ulster Rugby’s Paddy McAllistair, Roger Wilson and Adam Macklin to see who would produce the most perfectly decorated cupcake! True to form Dame Mary Peters emerged victorious to rapturous applause in the marquee.

We also partnered with James Street South’s head chef Niall McKenna, who offered daily Masterclasses on the Dale Farm stand to educate show-goers in the art of home baking – using the finest Dale Farm products of course!

Our Ainsley...The Asda marquee was the place to be with new and exciting products being sampled by Asda’s top suppliers across the three days. Celebrity chef Ainsley Harriott was also on hand to entertain the crowds on the stand - serving up delicious dishes alongside Asda’s expert chef – as well as choosing the winner of the Farming Life ‘Farmer’s Little Helper’ competition for 2013.

Bagel Boom! Irwin’s Bakery delighted the crowds with its new range of pre sliced bagels...available in cinnamon and raison, plain and brown – the hungry crowds couldn’t get enough of them and we even found some apprentice bakers!

These are only a few of our highlights from Balmoral Show 2013! It was a fantastic event and we even got some sunshine - roll on Balmoral Show 2014!

George Storms the Catwalk at Belfast Fashionweek!

We love it when a plan comes together..especially when it involves gorgeous clothes, models and the opening night of West Coast Cooler Belfast Fashionweek. Having worked with George at Asda over the past three seasons of Fashionweek - we took our partnership to a whole new level this year, helping the team put together its first standalone show.

It was a real privilege to work with the George House and Asda House team, as well as the event organisers at CMPR, on this project -  and we loved sharing in the passion and excitement (as well as the many weeks of planning, hard work and perspiration) that went in to making the show come to life.

During the pre-show build up we had the chance to meet with three of George's most influential and inspiring colleagues - Helen Low,  Helen Connolly and Jo Whitfield - and had the pleasure of introducing the ladies to some of Belfast's leading fashion journalists and bloggers.

Braving the arctic conditions on Thursday night, we made it to the gorgeous Ulster Museum for the main event. It was fantastic to take in the eager faces of fashionistas and bloggers in the audience, and hear the excited murmurs from the crowd as the models showcased the best of George's Spring Summer and High Summer looks. It might have been cold outside... but it was definitely hot on the George catwalk!!

George Spring Summer 2013

George Spring Summer 2013

George Spring Summer 2013

Seona and Kelly from Morrows 

A Titanic Night for Responsible Business!

Huge congratulations go to Asda who were officially named NI's Most Responsible Company at last night's Business in the Community Awards. The glittering awards were held in Titanic Belfast and Morrows joined Asda with our fingers crossed for the evening...and it paid off, as Asda picked up Employer of Choice followed by the main award of the evening- NI's Most Responsible Business!

A hugely deserving winner, Asda was applauded for its innovative polices on people,workplace, environment and community.

Big congratulations also go to Moy Park, Deloitte and Northgate Managed Services  - all nominated at the awards for their responsible business practices.

We're proud to work with such inspiring businesses... a feel good Friday all round!

Pride in client work at Morrows

Morrow Communications entered two awards in this year's CIPR Northern Ireland PRide Awards and won in both categories. Morrows took the Gold Award in the Corporate Social Responsibility category for its communications of the Asda 'Sporting Chance' initiative, aimed at encouraging activity in young people.



The team also picked up the Silver award for the Irwin's Bakery 'Great Veda Debate' campaign, which drove sales of the popular local loaf by asking the public to join the all important 'sliced or unsliced' discussion.

The awards bring Morrows' collection to a total of 18 Gold and 15 Silver within the past three years.

Supply deal has snowball effect for bakery

Snowballs are spreading festive cheer for one local business as Irwin's Bakery has secured a major supply deal through its cakes and biscuits division, Howell Handmade. The business has won a contract to supply its locally made ‘Mini Snowballs’ to Asda stores across the UK as part of the supermarket’s ‘Chosen by You’ own-brand range.

The first ‘own label’ supply contract for the Saintfield-based home bakery, will be worth over £150k per annum to the business and will run right through the key Christmas trading period, with a view to extending this to a longer basis.

Stefan Szymura, Account Manager with Irwin’s Bakery said the contract was, “a big win for Howell Handmade and a significant development in the overall Irwin’s business strategy".

Whilst Irwin’s products have a number of ‘own brand’ deals with key retail partners UK-wide, this is the first major supply contract of this kind for a Howell Handmade product and is testament to both the quality and appeal of traditional Northern Ireland baked goods. The small sponge coconut buns were chosen for the Asda range following a series of consumer taste tests, from which Asda said feedback was "extremely positive."

Irwin’s Bakery acquired Howell in 2006 and in doing so has successfully extended its reach within the confectionery bakery category.