Member's statement: Award-winning Food and Hospitality: North Down
Member's statement by Mr Peter Martin on .
- MLA
- Mr Peter Martin
- Party at the time
- Democratic Unionist Party
- Date
- 20 May 2025
- Type
- Member's statement
- Business
- Members' Statements
- Heading
- Award-winning Food and Hospitality: North Down
- Assembly identifier
- Official Report component 4963696
Read the official Assembly record
Text
Last week, at the Balmoral show, I saw the very best of our agri-food sector on display. As well as tasting some great food and drink, I saw plenty of animals and even ended up stroking an alpaca.
Yes, that is true, Phillip and Paul. In the past couple of years, however, our hospitality and food sectors have taken a battering: most recently with the Labour Government's decisions to reform National Insurance and increase inheritance tax on farm properties. Yet, in spite of those challenges, the local food and drink sector in my constituency has continued to go from strength to strength, with some notable successes across the British Isles. It is worth drawing attention to some of those stories and celebrating the achievements of local producers and hospitality businesses. Clandeboye Estate yogurt, which was started by the late Lady Dufferin, did fantastically well at the Irish Food Awards, with its raspberry and white chocolate pot recognised as the best product in Ireland. Ballyboley Dexters, a family-owned cattle farm, was acknowledged at the Great Taste Awards for its quality meat, which is produced using sustainable cattle farming techniques. It has also done great work to restore the historic Orlock Farm, which overlooks Belfast lough. Family-owned Primacy Meats was named retailer of the year at the Bangor Business Awards. Our hospitality businesses have also found great success at a local level. The Bangla in Bangor, owned by Abdul Rob, won the award for best Northern Ireland restaurant at the acclaimed "Curry Oscars" in London, cementing its status as the best Asian restaurant in Northern Ireland for the third year running. The Crawfordsburn Inn won the atmospheric destination of the year award at the Irish food and hospitality awards. The Jamaica Inn won the award for best gastropub in the Ulster region at the Irish Restaurant Awards. Honourable mentions go to Copeland Distillery, the Cleaver steakhouse and the Walled Garden in Helen's Bay amongst many other winners across my constituency. I should also mention the Star of Bengal, because it is my local Indian takeaway, and I highly recommend the lamb madras.
That is probably a pretty good point on which to end.
361 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.
Assessment
Jev’s structured answers met the documented threshold for “not flagged”.
- Overall probability that the activity is being used to promote, exploit or escalate an identity-based controversy: 0.03 (flagging needs at least 0.70; at or below 0.30 is not flagged).
- None of the five culture-war criteria was met (each was below 0.60).
- No identity-based framing was identified (1.00).
- The overall probability was at or below the not-flagging threshold.
This is an AI-generated assessment of the text, made against published criteria. It is not a finding of fact about the MLA or their intentions. The Assembly record itself is the fact.
Jev’s structured answers
| Question | Probability | Met? |
|---|---|---|
| Identity framing | 0.03 | No |
| Sectarian or communal antagonism | 0.02 | No |
| Cultural grievance politics | 0.02 | No |
| Dog-whistle messaging | 0.03 | No |
| Controversy escalation | 0.03 | No |
| Legitimate policy scrutiny | 0.08 | No |
| Overall judgement | 0.03 | At or below not-flagging threshold |
| Option | Probability |
|---|---|
| No identity-based framing (chosen) | 1.00 |
| Reports or questions it | 0.00 |
| Criticises or condemns it | 0.00 |
| Adopts it | 0.00 |
| Subject | Probability |
|---|---|
| No identity-related subject | 0.81 |
| Immigration, asylum, race, ethnicity and Travellers | 0.14 |
| Religion and belief (including people of no religion), churches, faith communities and religious prejudice (including antisemitism and anti-Muslim prejudice) | 0.02 |
| Another identity-related subject | 0.02 |
| Flags, emblems, symbols, names and memorials | 0.00 |
Assessed 21 October 2026 at 12:32 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.
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