Leading international hospitality starts by keeping it local

Celebrating International Hospitality Day, 24 April 2025. 

At ICC Belfast, Waterfront Hall and Ulster Hall, high quality hospitality is a real point of pride. Churning out “average” catering is strictly not on the menu for its food and beverage partner, as Managing Director, Andrew Dougan explains.

Food and drink are at the very heart of Northern Irish hospitality, so large-scale business events, international conferences and conventions provide an important showcase for our fantastic local produce. As the son of a farmer, I’m really proud to have the opportunity to serve local food and drink as a central part of the famous Belfast Welcome.

It says a lot about people’s level of expectation of large-scale catering nowadays, but I regularly hear feedback from people who express surprise that our event hospitality actually tastes great! 

Make no mistake: we have a real kitchen, we make real food and our chefs take great pride in the produce. I fully believe that eating outside the home at any time should be a treat – it should be done well.

I’ve visited many of the big event venues in the UK and Ireland and they’re all tended by big multi-national catering firms. They don’t have access to the wealth of local produce, artisan makers and growers that we have supplying us in Northern Ireland.

Why local matters

You know, the board of ICC Belfast took a brave decision when they appointed a local partnership in Hospitality Belfast, rather than a mass catering multi-national caterer. The easier route would have been for them to do a single exclusive pouring rights contract with one big drinks firm.

We do things differently here, and I firmly believe our venue hospitality stands out because of it. For example, we serve pressed Armagh Apple Juice as our signature start to the day for a breakfast event. It’s not concentrated orange juice from Spain or Egypt, it’s made from unique Northern Irish apples grown less than 50 miles from the venue. Likewise, we’ve commissioned a signature craft beer, which is made in a microbrewery less than a mile away across the River Lagan. 

Event venues of our calibre in Glasgow, Birmingham or Liverpool simply can’t do this and it makes our hospitality offering really special.

Food is a very emotive thing! If the catering is a source of issues for large venues like ours, it becomes a problem for the whole team.

The business events market is highly competitive and contracts are high value. Poor catering can make or break a deal worth hundreds of thousands of pounds and that impacts not only the venue but all the other parts of the hospitality ecosystem in the city or region: hotels, airports, transport providers. There’s actually a lot riding on it.

Trust the Experts

With our team’s years of experience, we can have the courage to say to event planners: that won’t work. When they trust us as the experts, we can successfully deliver huge international events with delegates from all over the globe, as we did with One Young World in 2023; or for hundreds of local business leaders at the Northern Ireland Chamber’s annual President’s Banquet.

That’s such a buzz and comes back to that sense of pride: not only successfully feeding and satisfying hundreds of people, but more importantly, showcasing our amazing local produce and allowing it to shine.

Leading with purpose

In 2023, ICC Belfast became among the first venues in Northern Ireland to achieve the international sustainability accreditation, ISO 20121, which aims to improve the sustainability of event-related activities.

Food sustainability obviously starts with traceability and supporting local and this in turn means low food miles. 

We’re able to grow fresh micro-herbs which we used to have to import from as far afield as Israel and Egypt. The food miles were ridiculous.

Because of the fantastic agrifood ecosystem in this region, the chances are we know every farmer, grower or artisan maker by name. That’s huge and really unique.

Food sustainability also plays a heavy role in terms of people and poverty. 8 out of 10 sustainability factors are not about soil – they’re about labour, so the social aspects of sustainability should lead us towards greater investment. That’s what we’re trying to do in Belfast with the Change the Menu for Good initiative led by Visit Belfast, and the work of the Belfast Food & Drink Collective with local foodbanks.

Another initiative we’ve been driving city-wide is a move to eliminate single use plastic. Along with other major Belfast venues, we’re piloting reusable plastic cups at the moment. It was really vital that we took the first step and we’re committed to making it work. Like any big change, it’s a learning curve, but we’re making progress. Single use plastic heading straight to landfill can no longer be an option and it’s really important that we’re leading the way.

Andrew Dougan is Managing Director of Hospitality Belfast and Pan and Pour, a unique joint venture between two local food businesses, Yellow Door and Mount Charles. Andrew is the son of a farmer, turned chef and businessman. For over 30 years, he has championed local culinary excellence and is a leader in Northern Ireland’s hospitality sector.