Irish Food Products Direct

Fair ye all,

Coming later this month in April 2010 will be the new Irish Gourmet website, which is reverting to its original guise as a showcase for Irish food products.

Its something we always wanted to do, it was our vision nearly 10 years ago to create something like this, but in the intervening period of time, we had to do dull things like build a cash flow, make a profit, establish a customer database, ship out thousands of hampers, little nuisances such as that.

We had to battle all the techological hurdles of internet bandwidth restrictions, hosting issues, overloaded servers.

Throughout this time, we would see rival companies start up and spend phenomenal amounts of money on a market, which simply wasn't big enough. Invariably the pace of change and development online has been so fast that small companies technological investment is outdated very quickly.
Other times we would gasp in astonishment at the sums of money spent on websites which were far inferior than our own small sub brands.

Anyway all is well in the world as The Irish Gourmet paced itself. This new website will be our 4th version of the site since 2004, but this is what we wanted all along and it has been acchieved in record time. This blog post marks the beginning of the design process and we expect to have the complete website in its .co.uk format up and running before the end of April with the .ie site available the following week.

Categories will be:

The Weavers
The Bakery
The Butchery
The Fishmongers
The Patisserie
The Sweetie Shop
The Grocery
The Dairy
The Epicurist
The Winecellar
The Farm
The Hamper Shop

Customers will be able to select the finest artisan, gourmet food products from the shopping sections above. So you can visit the weaver and buy your basket, then visit the Bakery to add your biscuits, the patisserie for your cake, the dairy for a cheese and the epicurist for some hand made specialities.
Or you can just visit the hamper shop and choose from a wide range of our hamper styles.

Essentially this website will be so cool that if you want to buy a hamper in the UK or Ireland, then Irishgourmet will be an essential browse.

Our objective is to build and design the most user friendly Irish Hamper Website in the World.

Let us know if you agree when you're browsing in May

The Irish Gourmet

Easter food gifts

With Mother's Day & St Patricks Day only just over, Easter is now fast approaching! With Good Friday on the 2nd April, Easter Sunday on the 4th & Easter Monday the 5th April.

The Easter holidays are generally a time for family get-togethers, be it a family picnic, barbeque or sit down dinner. This is why a food hamper is an increasingly popular Easter present. Our new spring range of hampers are perfect for a family feed, as they contain a mixture of sweet & savoury gourmet items, fresh meats such as ham & salmon and pressed apple juice. http://www.irishgourmet.co.uk/spring-summer-hampers.html



Irish Gourmet is also pleased to introduce some special Easter-themed gift baskets this year, to compliment our existing good food hampers. Our Easter gifts baskets are perfect presents for children & contain cute stuffed animals such as bunnies & chicks, chocolate easter eggs as well as lollies & candies. You can also add extra items to a basket if it is for more than 1 child to enjoy!



Our Easter presents can be delivered directly to the lucky recipients, across Ireland & the UK for only £3.99. Courier companies will not be delivering on Good Friday & Easter Monday, so we suggest picking a delivery date of the 1st April at the latest. So why not send your kids, grandchildren, nephews, nieces, godchild or family an Easter gift basket today & they can enjoy it together over the holiday period.

Irish food - Perfect for St. Patricks Day

This Wednesday, the 17th March is St. Patricks Day! What better way to celebrate than enjoying some delicious Irish food from Irish Gourmet. The vast majority of the gourmet food items in our gift baskets are of Irish origin.

For example:

Fivemiletown & Causeway cheeses, which are produced in Northern Ireland.
Our Offbeat chutneys & marmalades are also produced in Bangor, Co. Down.
Cottage Pride jam's, Barnhill fruit juices & Forest Feast snacks & tropical fruit mixes are all from Co. Armagh.
Baked goods like the biscuits, fruit cakes & oatcakes we include are by Ditty's, Grace's and Corn Dolly bakeries & they are all located in Co. Down.
Our recently introduced Ashers Bakery fresh cakes & buns are from Newtownabbery, Co. Antrim.
The Whitewater Brewery who produce the Ale in our gift baskets, is nestled in the Mourne Mountains.
Melting Pot Fudge is also produced in Co. Down
SD Bells Tea headquarters are located in Belfast.

The Organic Salmon in our gifts baskets is from Co. Cork, Ireland
Bradys Air-Dried Ham is Irish pork, from Co. Kildare.
Mileeven Honey, based in Co. Kilkenny
Butlers Chocolates, from Dublin.
Lily O'Briens Chocolates, from Co. Kildare
Skelligs handmande Chocolates, from Co. Kerry
Wicklow Fine Foods Chocolates & Biscuits, from Co. Wicklow
Filligans Chutneys & Relishes are from Co. Donegal
Or toast the occasion with some world famous Jameson's Irish Whiskey!

We can ship our hampers directly to you, or to the lucky recipient(s). Next day delivery is available to the UK & Ireland, so you still have time to order. Good luck!

Send a gift basket for Mother's Day (Sun 14th March)

Mums spend most of their time looking after us, and everyone else for that matter. Some mums don't make much time for themselves, so why not send her a hamper full of yummy treats so she can put her feet up and indulge this Mother's Day.

Whether she prefers tea & biscuits, wine & cheese or is a bit of a chocoholic, we have gift baskets to suit all tastes.

We will also be including a cute Mother's Day balloon & gift card, with all orders quoting "Happy Mother's Day" in the gift card message.(*While stocks last). So you can pick a gift hamper from any of the sections on our website.

Please get ordering ASAP to ensure you avail of this offer. Mother's Day in the UK & Ireland is on Sunday 14th March, so we are aiming to deliver all Mother's Day gifts on Thursday 11th or Friday 12th March. We will also include a note on the outside of the box, so your mum is aware the contents are strictly for Mother's Day!

Valentine's Day Gifts to Ireland & UK

Well The Irish Gourmet has finally gone all romantic and designed a few Valentine-themed gift baskets for our customers. They are still full of gorgeous gourmet food & drink items, but may include a silk red rose, Valentine gift card or red ribbon to mark the occasion! Our all year round range also make popular Valentine's presents, such as our Champagne & Chocolates gift baskets, and arrive beautifully gift-wrapped.

Valentine's Day is on Sunday 14th February this year, 2010. There is still time to order your gourmet gift basket for delivery on Thursday or Friday though. A gift basket is an excellent choice, as hopefully you will get share too! Or if you are apart from your Valentine this year we can deliver it directly to the lucky recipient, along with your personalised message, and surprise them for you. The contents are sure to make them smile & can also be enjoyed for longer than flowers!

You can view our Valentine range by clicking on the title of this post.

So go on, send your love with a romantic gift basket today!

Christmas Hampers to Ireland

Happy Christmas to all our readers and customers.

With only 15 days to go until Christmas Day, hundreds of Irish Gourmet hampers are being dispatched. This year we have a selection of over 60 baskets, but the selection will gradually reduce as varieties sell out.

Heavy sales of Battle of the Biscuits means it will be withdrawn shortly. There is also heavy pressure on Great Taste Award Winner Silver edition, Christmas Wine Celebration and 100% Alcohol Free.

In spite of this Irish Gourmet has never emailed a customer with a week remaining before Christmas to advise them that they are unable to fulfil their customers order. Invariably we are the company that people in NI and the ROI find when they are let down by others.

We advise customers to order as early as possible as this gives us time to adjust inventory and if you are reading this and can only see a reduced selection, there is a reason for this and we hope you'll visit us again in the future.

Irish Gourmet.

Exciting New Irish Gourmet Website

The Irish Gourmet is thrilled to annouce that our fab new website was recently launched, just in time for the busy Christmas period.

The old website served us well over the years, but we thought a Spring (or Autumn) clean was in order. The new site has the look & feel of a traditional Irish Shop, selling wonderful Irish artisan produce. As well as this attractive new look we have also amended the categories to make searching even easier for our customers. A bit like re-arranging the layout of a shop! There is also an improved search facilty, if you would like to see all gift baskets containing 'brie cheese' or 'dark chocolate' for example.

A lot of our customers send our gift baskets to friends & family abroad, so the decision was made to arrange out baskets according to where they can be shipped to.

1) Great Britain & Ireland
2) USA, Canada & International
3) Germany, France & Europe

These sections are further sub-divided into 'Christmas', 'All Year Round Hampers' (i.e - birthday, get well, thank you gifts, and 'Shop by Price'.

As well as making browsing easier for our customers, there have also been improvements behind the scenes. These improvements will help us improve automation, like stock management and order processing.

We know a lot of our customers are repeat customers, who had previously created accounts with Irish Gourmet. As we have moved platforms, unfortunately your email address & log in details will no longer be recognised as a returning customer. Please don't think you are doing anything wrong. We have records of all past orders though, if you would like to check what gift basket you ordered last year. Creating a new account is quick & easy, and your billing & shipping addresses will be stored for future orders again. Other shopping cart improvements include the calender & the ability to input multiple shipping addresses under 1 order, is shortly being introduced.

We hope you enjoy shopping on the new Irish Gourmet site. Please let us know your thoughts or suggestions. Our Christmas 2009 hampers and gift baskets are available to buy now & we look forward to helping you with your Christmas gifts.

The IG Team