The event discussed the ideas and opportunities facing the grocery retailing industry, along with revealing a number of technologies and other solutions to support retailers’ businesses that are due to roll out over the next 12 months.

Held at the Kilsahee Resort & Spa in Naas, Co. Kildare, this was the first in-person MACE retailer event in more than three years due to the Covid-19 pandemic and was very well attended.

Among the new solutions showcased on the day was BWG Foods’ new predictive AI stock management system, ShopLink PRO, which leverages hundreds of complex data points to predict consumer demand for in-store products, allowing for smarter forecasting of stock requirements, while also considering business promotions and category management to deliver the next five-day sales forecasts.

The BWG team also revealed an innovative new HR Support service for retailers to manage this very important part of their business.

BWG Foods, owners and operators of the MACE brand in Ireland, also showcased a number of their latest food and beverage concepts including Háo Chi Bar, The Local Tea Company, Popsicle, Pazza @ Home and I-Scream, the exclusive ice cream offering.

Peter Dwan, sales director at MACE, said: “It was wonderful that so many Mace retailers were able to get together for this very important and informative meeting.  It’s been over three years since the Mace family got together which made today’s event even more enjoyable. Retailing evolved over this period, so it was more important than ever that we got together as we all know, retailers learn from each other.

“Businesses are facing huge challenges with the extraordinary rate of increase in energy costs as well as rising inflation, collectively we need to help each other over the coming weeks and months as we navigate this latest challenge. Today’s event showcased how technology ‘ innovation and a joined up approach will support retailers into the future.”

Caption: Padraig Delaney and Ger Kelly, (MACE Moneen, Castlebar) with Ireland rugby captain and MACE Ambassador Johnny Sexton.

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Paddy Jordan of Jordan Town and Country Estates, which is handling the sale, has set July 12 as the closing date for tenders. He describes it as a long-term investment opportunity.

The combined guide price for both sections would exceed €3.38m.

A key attraction of the lands is the direct access onto the N7 Castlewarden Interchange. CityWest business and residential district lies just 18kms north of the property while Naas lies 5kms to the west.

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The Kildare-based retail group, which operates a chain of Eurospar stores across counties Dublin, Clare, Kilkenny, Kildare and Westmeath, said it had spent €400,000 installing solar panels at all feasible locations across its chain of eight stores.

The company has also invested a further €1.4 million to replace more than 100 refrigeration units with new, ultra-energy efficient fridges. The fluorinated gases used in fridges are powerful greenhouse gases with a higher warming potential than carbon dioxide.

Furey Smyth Group says its investment has cut the company’s energy usage by 40% and this will cut its annual energy consumption by more than 1.1 million kilowatt hours. The investment will also cut its carbon footprint  by 350,000 kg of carbon dioxide per year.

Director Chris Furey said the investment represents the single largest sustainability programme by an independent retail group in Ireland.

“It follows other initiatives across the business, including the rollout of energy efficient lighting in all our stores and an infrastructure optimisation initiative aimed at identifying other energy efficiency opportunities,” he said.

“Ultimately, we are working towards carbon neutrality and are targeting being off-grid in the summertime in the near-term.

“Newer technologies are currently being developed and tested which will facilitate complex carbon neutrality in the future and we endeavour to embrace these solutions as they become available.”

Furey Smyth Group carried out the €2 million investment programme over 10 weeks to minimise the impact on trade. It estimates it will take six to seven years to achieve a return on investment through energy savings.

The company said the  investment was completed with the help of the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland  (SEAI) and wholesale group BWG Foods.

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The supermarket says has committed to a €320 million three-year (2022-2024) investment programme that will see it open a further 30 new stores across the country.

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“The brothers were inspired by their grandfather, Dominic Doyle, who opened the first delicatessen in Ireland in the 1960s and who owned and ran the famous DB Doyle’s Butchers and meat processing plant in Newbridge, Co. Kildare.

Aside from being a successful food producer, Dominic Doyle Senior was a highly skilled businessman and was also the owner and one of the founders of the Newbridge Cutlery factory, now known as the world-famous lifestyle brand, Newbridge Silverware.

The new micro grocery store, Doyle’s Grocers, is housed in what was an old butcher’s shop in the square in Ballymore Eustace, and stocks a range of everything from cured meats to handmade cheeses, bread and cakes, fresh vegetables, speciality condiments, pickles, jams and preserves.

Original vintage dressers are filled with old fashioned tins of spices, unusual store cupboard luxuries and fabulous old-fashioned tins and packaging. The store offers everything from olive pâté, and chilli infused honey to traditional lemon curd and ‘blow your head off’ inferno hot sauce. The vintage inspired tin packaging containing premium picante tuna and anchovies is as pretty as it is tasty and is testament to the brothers’ quest for the unusual and the rare.

Local suppliers are key to the quality of the items for sale in the shop, which include local produce such as Bernard Gibney’s jams and preserves, handmade in small batches in Kildare Town. Cheeses include Ballyhubbock Farm Cheese and the most delicious, delicately fragrant, goat’s cheese made by Conor Phelan of Hollywood Farmhouse Cheese. 

Fresh, organic vegetables and herbs grown in Dermot Carey’s organic vegetable farm in Arsdcull in Co. Kildare are stocked as well as freshly baked bread and pastries. Doyle’s Grocers stocks Irish stoneground flour and porridge made by Ballymore Organics, grown and milled by James Kelly at his old stone mill outside the village of Ballymore Eustace.

In true Doyle family butcher’s style,  the store also stocks venison steaks, cured meats, speciality sausages and black pudding such as Inch House Pudding, hand made by Máirín Byrne from Co. Tipperary. The pudding is made from an old family recipe passed down through Máirín’s family for generations.

Dominic Doyle says: “Our grandfather, Dominic Senior who I am named after was a stalwart of industry and had the foresight to open what was Ireland’s first ever delicatessen in Ireland in 1963. Even back then, he could see that people wanted in season, fresh food, not mass-produced products but speciality meats, ethically farmed and produced by local people.

“The farm to fork ethos that our grandfather had then is just as important now. People want to know where their food comes from – food provenance is vital. When people buy locally, they cut down on travel, they support small producers and they get great tasting, premium food that can’t be found in supermarkets.

“My brother Conor and I can see a big shift in the choices people make when it comes to food, and we are delighted to be able to showcase some of the most incredible artisan produce made here in Kildare and in Ireland.”

Doyle’s Grocers is located in the Square, Ballymore Eustace, Co. Kildare and is open from Tuesday to Friday from 8am to 5pm and from 9am to 5pm on Saturdays and Sundays. The shop offers a range of beautiful Christmas hampers and can also make up hampers to order.

For more information follow @doylesgrocers on Instagram or email  domodyle@gmail.com.

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