2023 Excellence Showcase ‘People’s Choice’ winners donate their €2,000 prize winnings to Focus Ireland

2023 Excellence Showcase ‘People’s Choice’ award winners Robert Kehoe and Grace O’Dwyer, alongside Micheal Phelan, presented their €2,000 prize winnings to Focus Ireland in March.

Representing the homeless charity was Patrick Jordan, who outlined the positive impact of such charitable donations in the fight against homelessness in Ireland. With the latest official figures of people registered on emergency beds at an all-time high of 13,500, 4,000 of which are children, there is no doubt that the funds will be put to good use.

The charity was selected by the team due to the prevailing and worsening homelessness crisis in Ireland. Particularly poignant are the figures around homelessness amongst children – no child should ever have to worried about having a roof over their head and this really struck a chord within the team. As a reputable charity with a long running history of having a positive impact all around Ireland, the team felt it was a suitable choice.

‘Building the Branch Network of the Future’ was the ‘People’s Choice’ project at last year’s Excellence Showcase and outlined the agri category’s strategic approach to the development of our 52 branch estate. The objective was to create a modern branch network that epitomise’s Tirlán’s vision of building a community that celebrates wholesome nutrition from the land we live and love.

The work included a rebrand of all 52 Tirlán’s store estate within a 12 month time period, along with creating a new concept store design that would inspire the communities we serve and demonstrate the new look and feel of the Tirlán brand across Ireland, with a view to all stores receiving a revamp or redevelopment within a 4-5 year period. Bunclody was selected as the pilot concept store and renovations were completed by the end of March ’23. Athboy followed in September 2023. This concept is now being rolled out across Tirlán’s Branch network.

In addition, a low carbon store was trialled in our Castlecomer branch, with a view to monitoring the impact overtime and rolling out changes across the store estate.