Chairman Perry Donaldson scooped the Florette Lifetime Achievement Award, while the company took the Capespan Wholesaler of the Year title.
Donaldson was commended for more than 40 years serving the industry. He began life in the fruit and veg trade in 1963 with James McVeigh and Son and eight years later he formed Perry Donaldson & Co, which proved to be a fortuitous piece of timing. The market’s administrators were planning to move from its traditional city centre home to a green-field site. When the move took place he was the first to take his business outside the market complex. It was the first of many occasions when he made his own decisions and created his own marketplace.
In 1981 Donaldson founded Perry Pac Ltd, the first vegetable processing and packaging facility in Northern Ireland and during this decade he became something of a frontman for the industry in the province. Donaldson was fresh produce spokesman for BBC Radio (NI) and contributed to a regular consumer spot on BBC TV.
In 1989 he sold his two existing businesses and joined a new company, North Down Fruit & Vegetable Co, as chairman and managing director and today North Down is a £22 million turnover company that continues to innovate and lead trade in Northern Ireland.
It was the unanimous view of the judges that, having spent his working life raising the standard and awareness of the fresh produce industry that he should be presented with the Florette Lifetime Achievement Award.
The North Down Group saw off the challenge of J Carmichael & Co and Premier Fruits to take the Capespan Wholesaler of the Year award.
In fifteen years the company that began as a secondary wholesaler with two employees has grown to become Northern Ireland’s largest independent fresh produce wholesaling business. The group operates from a four-acre site in Belfast employing more than 70 people.
Defying the trend of wholesale market decline, it underwent what it calls a ‘complete change in business ethos’. As well as a move to new purpose-built facilities it decided it had to offer a one-stop-shop service to customers throughout the province.
