The Island Deli – an interview with Joanna Breeze

The Shetland Islands are renowned for their delicious and unique food offerings, and the Island Deli is no different! The Island Deli are a small business with a big passion for creating great food and providing fuss free, high-quality catering for every occasion.

My favourite product has to be our graze boxes. I particularly like the classic graze box with all of the meats and the cheeses – especially paired with a glass of wine and shared with friends!

We were delighted to speak with Joanna Breeze, the Finance and Administrative Manager at the Island Deli, to find out more about their journey…

Q. Can you tell me a little bit about yourself?
A. My background is finance, admin and management in January while I was travelling in New Zealand I received a message from Sarah, the owner, asking me if I would like to come and join the team as she was looking for a manager. I started in February, and it has been a whirlwind ever since – it is very busy, but I love it!

Q. What is the story of the Island Deli? How did it begin?
A. The Island Deli was created just five years ago in 2019 by a lady who lived in Brae. She originally started the business by making sandwiches and graze boxes just as a sideline project. However, it proved popular, and it has just grown and grown ever since. Last year, Sarah and Addie Manson bought the business and moved it to their premise at The Voe Centre in the old school in Voe.

Q. What kind of products do you offer?
A. There is a very long list! We supply our goods to a variety of local shops around Shetland, I think around 8 shops every day. We provide soup, sandwiches, rolls, wraps, salad boxes, sausage rolls, coleslaw, tattie salad, pasta salad, traybakes and cheesecakes. We also make a wide variety of individual ready meals including lasagne, macaroni and cheese and sausage casserole.

I think the niche with the Island Deli is our delicious graze boxes, which are an ideal selection of nibbles and they come in both sweet and savoury options. We have our classic graze box, which can be made meat-free or vegan, as well as our dessert graze box. There is no one else doing something similar in Shetland, so this really sets us apart. Another one of our niche products is our picnic boxes which are great for grabbing on the go when you are heading out for the day. We get a lot of people popping into to pick up a picnic box as they are so handy.

Q. How do you incorporate local ingredients in your products?
A. We try and support local as much as we can, although it is quite difficult for some products as they aren’t available or grown in Shetland. We acquire all of our cooked meats for sandwiches from the local butcher along the road. We also offer fish cakes and fish soup, made with Shetland fish, and we also support Shetland dairy by using their butter and milk. We use a Shetland bakery for our rolls.

Q. Do you have a favourite product among your offerings?
A. My favourite product has to be our graze boxes. I particularly like the classic graze box with all of the meats and the cheeses – especially paired with a glass of wine and shared with friends! I like that they are so different and cleverly made, and they also look really cool. Even before I started working here, I was a big customer of the Island Deli.

Q. Where can customers buy Island Deli products?
A. We supply lots of local shops throughout Shetland and we also supply direct from us. We take orders directly and we do receive most of orders this way. We’ve started working in conjunction with the Mareel as well, so if customers are struggling to get to us in Voe, then they can collect their orders from the Mareel.

Q. What is next for the Island Deli? Do you have anything exciting on the horizon?
A. I think we just need to keep carrying on with where we are going but with a bit of growth to keep expanding the business. We recently done some outside catering, such as for weddings or funerals, and this is something we have enjoyed doing. We have also began working with the Mareel where on a Friday and Saturday night, when you book a table at their café bar, you can order a jug of cocktail or a bottle of prosecco alongside an Island Deli graze box. By working in collaboration with businesses like the Mareel, this is helping us get out to the wider Shetland public.

To find out more about the Island Deli, please visit: https://islanddeli.co.uk/.

By Amy Leith
Born and raised in Aberdeen with an admiration for Orkney and Shetland, loves to travel and visit new places, enjoys cooking, always listening to music, spends a little too much time on TikTok.

Pin it!