Ards & North Down: An Emerging Food Tourism Destination

Project Description:

This project is a work in progress. It is being created as a tool for classroom learning, research, and other practical application in the academic landscape.

The Ards & North Down Borough of Northern Ireland is located in the northeast, just outside of Dublin. The borough, although not globally recognized as a food tourism destination, is slowly being recognized for its high-quality food offerings and unique product offerings. The plan for the case is to delve into the supply chain highlighting some of the more unique or prominent businesses, farms, festivals, and markets that Ards & North Down has to offer.

The beginning of the case will outline a major farming operation in the borough. Currently, the focus is leaning towards Milbank Farms, run by an energetic, young woman with an entrepreneurial soul. The hope is to better understand how this vegetable farm is interacting in the local, and broader, tourism environment. It is also important to understand what makes their vegetables superior quality to other farms.

The case will then follow to the next player in the supply chain which would be restaurants. To bridge this gap the case will talk about the “Meet the Maker” event that is held by Tourism Northern Ireland. This is an event where restaurants will make a dish highlighting some of the unbelievable local produce, then halfway through the meal, a producer, or farmer, will speak to the local produce and give some history of the farm, themselves, and the food that the people are eating. This shows the connection between agriculture and the culinary scene in Ards & North Down. There has yet to be a restaurant identified as an ideal candidate to be highlighted in this case. However, this level of the supply chain is also shared with food producers and artisans. For this reason, the case will also look at the relationship between agriculture and artisan food products. Again, there is no particular business that has been highlighted but, it is likely to be a bakery as Northern Ireland is known for its sourdough and it is believed that this would be important to highlight.

The next section of the case will dive into some of the festivals and markets in Ards & North Down. Firstly, the Portebogie Seafood Festival will be put in the spotlight as it will begin to show one of the final culinary offerings in the borough, seafood. This festival has also been selected to be showcased as it has recently become a surf and turf event marrying land as sea agriculture. The market that has been selected as the focal point for this section is the Comber Market, one of the largest in the borough. It prides itself on only having producers from within the borough. It has become a major tourism generating attraction in the area. For these reasons, it has been selected for this case.

The final section of the case will explore a perceived divide between land and sea in all aspects of the supply chain.

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