Best Fishmonger award and Christmas boost for Ewing’s

The family business, which has been based on the Shankill Road since 1911 and sold fish to workers building the Titanic luxury liner at Harland and Wolff, was chosen by Slow Food UK, part of an international movement that started in Italy to showcase and celebrate good, clean and fair food businesses.

Created seven years ago, the awards are thoroughly democratic – with no prior shortlisting, the winners are simply chosen by whoever gets the most votes from the public. Each nation has its own winners, with the highest number of votes in each category also being the overall UK winner. The Slow Food chairman in Northern Ireland is celebrity chef and Farming Life food writer Paula McIntyre.

Crawford Ewing, the commercial director of the business started by his grandfather, is understandably delighted to have been recognised by Slow Food.

“Any high profile endorsement at this testing time is very welcome. It’s a great morale boost after what has been an immensely difficult year for the seafood industry and wider retailing and hospitality here,” he says. “We were badly hit by the coronavirus lockdown on all our key customers in hospitality especially the 400 restaurants and hotels here that we’ve been supplying over very many years. It forced us to shutter the business for a short time while we considered how best to react to the formidable challenge.”

The business he runs with father Walter and brother Warren reopened within a few weeks with a sharper focus on retailing through its iconic and popular shop on the Shankill…and shoppers from all over the city rallied to support the business.

“We’ve developed a great reputation for quality and customer service over the years and were heartened by the response from the community in what was a very difficult time for everyone. We also surmounted the challenge of a shortage of fish and other seafood due to the impact of the pandemic that led to many boats remaining in the harbours,” he continues.

The Christmas and New Year period boosted business and especially sales of the company’s multi-award winning and handcrafted smoked salmon to the hospitality

sector and also among shoppers. The salmon is now readily available in Sainsbury’s stores and hundreds of specialist shops across Northern Ireland.

“Our smoked salmon is from our own smoker behind the shop and has long been the market leader and has continued to be so over the current festive season,” he says. “The attractively packaged salmon has won acclaim in national food competitions especially the UK Great Taste Awards.”

As well as reopening the shop for consumers in the initial lockdown, Ewing’s also responded to the pandemic challenge by providing fish boxes delivered in the city by its 11-strong fleet on refrigerated vans from telephone orders from customers. It proved a popular service.

Crawford explains: “We wanted to reach out to existing and new customers unable to visit our shop and enable them to continue to enjoy healthy and nutritious fish at a very difficult time. We subsequently decided to introduce our first-ever home delivery service.”

The service included slicing fish for ease of cooking at home. “We were also conscious of the developing trend towards home cooking and the demand for simple

and nutritious meals for all the family,” Crawford says.

The family business, which has been processing and selling fresh fish and seafood to other retailers as well as leading hotels and restaurants and directly to shoppers, on the Shankill Road for over a century, has also been awarded the British Retail Consortium’s hugely important double A star rating, its highest certificate for an outstanding food business, for the sixth consecutive year.

Ewing’s was among nine local food companies to receive important Slow Food recognition. The others were: Best Butcher - Hannan Meats, Moira; Best Baker - Ursa Minor, Ballycastle; Best Greengrocer – Slemish Market Garden, Ballymena; Best Deli or Grocer - Indie Fude, Comber; Best Cheesemonger - Indie Fude,

Comber; Best Market - St George’s Market, Belfast; Best Restaurant/Food Eatery - Native Seafood and Scran, Coleraine; Champion Slow Food Product - Mike’s Fancy Cheese, the producer of Young Buck Blue Cheese in Newtownards.

Northern Ireland’s Slow Food Person of the Year was Jilly Dougan, who works to promote growing and sustainability throughout Northern Ireland, championing seasonality and food with a sense of place – something never more important than in the current pandemic. The winners each get a special certificate and the right to call themselves establishment/product of the year for each nation.

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