Fancy being the next Ballygowan or Ballymaloe Foods? Well now’s your chance with Homegrown at Maxol, a new initiative to support Ireland’s amazing food and drinks producers to help them grow.
In partnership with Champion Green, Maxol is inviting all Irish SMEs and start-ups in the food and drinks arena to enter the Homegrown at Maxol programme. This is the first programme of its kind in the forecourt and convenience retail sector to offer immediate and tangible support to local businesses across Ireland.
Four finalists will be selected in the inaugural year of the programme securing a listing in Maxol stores, together with a marketing support package along with mentorship from Maxol’s retail experts and a chance to showcase their product to 400 convenienve retailers. One business will be announced as the 2023 Homegrown at Maxol Champion and will be featured in the Irish Times magazine and on Irishtimes.com. The process couldn’t be easier. You can apply here. Entries close on Friday, March 31st.
For Maxol Group chief executive Brian Donaldson the programme reflects Maxol’s support for local, indigenous food and drinks producers and suppliers, and also provides winners with an opportunity to scale up.
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As such it fits well with the company’s focus on expanding its range of homegrown food and drinks categories across its network of stores. Whether it is healthy on the go snacks or drinks, dine in options, alcoholic or non-alcoholic drinks or its full range of groceries for a hearty dinner.
Championing Homegrown
In 2021 Maxol joined Champion Green, a national movement set up to boost local businesses, to demonstrate the company’s backing for SMEs, while helping to shine a light on SMEs in need of support. Donaldson believes the Homegrown at Maxol programme, with Champion Green, is a natural progression of both the partnership and of Maxol’s progression in its convenience retail journey.
“The aim of the programme is to give small businesses an opportunity to grow and expand by getting prime shelf space in our 72 company-owned stores in the Republic of Ireland, supported by well positioned and innovative point-of-sale marketing material, advertising and mentoring support from Maxol.”
The programme is open to food and drinks products of all kinds. “Within food, it can be in any area or category, whether ambient, confectionery, deli, health foods or snacks, as long as it is made in Ireland,” says Donaldson.
“We’re hoping to attract strong interest from drinks producers too, from kombucha to fruit juices to alcoholic beverages,” he says. Maxol has a full off licence offering in more than half of its stores, and wine licences in many more.
“Ireland has already created some pretty innovative gins and whiskeys in recent years, such as Dingle Distillery and Drumshanbo Gunpowder. Our aim is to invite companies that aren’t currently supplying our businesses to enter the programme online,” he adds.
The programme invites entries from businesses operating in a wide range of areas including ambient, confectionary, deli, hot, fresh, soft drinks, juices and smoothies, teas, health and fitness, milk and dairy based drinks and alcohol.
Judging panel
Entries will be reviewed by a panel of judges that includes Donaldson, Maxol Group chief retail officer, Ciaran McNally, The Irish Times restaurant critic, Corinna Hardgrave, Kilkenny Group and Champion Green CEO, Evelyn Moynihan, owner of the Thomas Ennis Group and Maxol licensee, Thomas Ennis and retail key accounts director for BWG, Alex Banahan.
“It’s a good mix of judges who will look at shortlisting the best of the best from a wide range of products and producers. However, our retailers will make the final decision at our annual retail conference where they will get to sample the finalists’ produce,” he explains.
“We will review the entries and pick four finalists to showcase their innovative new products to our retailers at a special retail conference we are holding in the K Club on Thursday, April 20th.”
The four finalists will be given an opportunity to showcase their products so that retailers can sample their fare for themselves before choosing one outright winner.
“Ultimately it will be our retailers who decide on the overall winner, and we are really excited to see all of the entries as we know there are so many amazing small and medium sized food and drink businesses in Ireland. “It’s about trying to find the next Keogh’s Crisps, or O’Donnell’s Crisps, both of which started off as small family businesses before going on to become very successful big entities.”
Putting food at the heart of the community
In recent years Maxol stores have been redesigned to reflect its transition in the food and drink arena with a palette of fresh greens and earthy browns. The Maxol Deli already draws heavily on locally sourced ingredients, while the group has also launched own branded products including milk, water, prepacked sandwiches, salads and fruit pots and Rosa Coffee, its signature freshly brewed coffee, specially developed for Maxol by another great Irish company, Bewley’s.
“We are continuing our transition from being seen as a traditional forecourt retailer to much more of a convenience and fresh food product provider, across the island of Ireland,” says Donaldson.
Family values
One of The Maxol Group’s key values is family. “As well as being owned by the McMullan family, all our sites are operated by families, serving the families in their communities. It’s why calling the programme Homegrown at Maxol is so apt and appropriate,” he explains.
As part of the adjudication process, Homegrown at Maxol judges will look at entrants’ capacity to scale up, particularly as the winners will have the opportunity to supply 72 of its company owned stores.
There is however scope to allow for winners to be showcased on a regional basis, if 72 stores are too big an initial step up for them.
“We don’t want to become too restrictive about who we want to apply,” he explains.
Support for local businesses grew during the pandemic, and Maxol, which has been at the heart of communities for 102 years, was a beneficiary of that.
“Convenience stores in neighbourhood locations saw a Covid bounce because people wanted to shop locally in stores that they trusted and had high standards of hygiene and service. That introduced a lot of people to the convenience sector, and they liked what they saw,” recalls Donaldson.
“They liked the value, the range and the customer service, and the proof of that is in the pudding in terms of the customer loyalty that developed. People have continued to support local, domestic, indigenous businesses.”
Serving the community
Maxol is a hub in many communities and indeed is often the main or only shop in a village.
“As such we feel we have a duty of care to help local indigenous businesses, which was central to our decision to back the Champion Green movement. Economically times are liable to get tougher and we know consumers want to support local businesses,” he explains.
“We have provided a wide range of services for over a century - people know us for the consistent quality of our products,” he adds.
“We already stock a very broad range of locally produced products, but we want to give even more prominence to these in our stores. Homegrown at Maxol is a natural way of combining our investment to help other businesses grow.”
Enter Homegrown at Maxol here