Karro’s Cookstown launches lean bacon medallions

11-Jan-2016 - Last updated on 11-Jan-2016 at 11:37 GMT

The Bacon Delights product is part of a wider £8m investment

Karro Foods brand Cookstown has launched a ready-to-eat bacon product in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.

Irish pork producer Cookstown, part of the UK company Karro Food Group, has introduced Bacon Delights, a 100% lean, roasted and lightly smoked bacon medallion product, that can be microwaved in two minutes.

The 120g packs contain six medallions. It’s a great product for those looking to cut saturated fat from their diets or attempting to boost protein intake, says Cookstown general sales manager Alastair McQuillan.

Sweeping innovations

“The Bacon Delights product has been developed by us following extensive market research, which revealed consumer issues associated with convenience, white residue from cooking and the need to trim fat. Bacon Delights overcomes all these issues and is a succulent and extremely convenient product. Using the microwave means there’s no need to clean the grill when cooking bacon,” McQuillan said.

Bacon Delights is indicative of the company’s drive to deliver sweeping improvements and innovations across the business.

On this, McQuillan said: “Over the past 12 months we have invested over £8m at Cookstown on a number of major site improvements to support us in our plans to better meet retailer demand, provide customer choice and stay ahead of the opposition.

“We are very excited, for instance, about our new chilling facility, which is due for completion early in 2016. We are one of the first organisations in the world to utilise this new technology, which will provide for greater efficiencies in carcase chilling and production, improved meat quality and increased slaughter capacity to more than 30,000 pigs.

Republic of Ireland expansion

“In addition we will also be able to grow our butchery capacity and process more added-value lines.”

Cookstown claimed the company had been the market leader in Northern Ireland for around 70 years and the £8m ($11.6) investment had been made to largely expand the Cookstown brand in the Republic of Ireland.

The company also exports to the US and has an eye on China’s market, which is driving growth in exports of EU pig meat.