Tong Garden Centre has created a new role to spearhead food and drink initiatives as it prepares for future growth.

Sarah Dwyer, who led the development of Hearty's Food Hall from concept to its completion in 2021, has been appointed to the new Head of Food position.

In her new role, Ms Dwyer will head up both Hearty's food hall and the Blooms Kitchen and Mezzanine at Tong and all restaurants at the Tingley garden centre that is due to open later this year.  She will be responsible for creating customer experiences through dining concepts, complementing the Hearty's range and building on Tong's ‘known for' offering created by the in-house butchery and bakery teams.

"Given the growth and success of our dining offer at Tong to date, the expansion of our Tong prep kitchen, the redevelopment of our Foodhall to Hearty's and our exciting expansion plans with Tingley, it's the right time to put a specific Food structure in place to take our food proposition forward and Sarah is the perfect person to lead this," said Tong's MD, Mark Farnsworth.

Ms Dwyer is excited about the challenges that she faces in her new role: "This is a great opportunity to understand food trends, leverage our food supplier base and create a cohesive approach with our restaurant concepts and Hearty's. With the help of the food team, we will be championing Tong made products including customer favourites from vanilla slices to meat pies, plus our extensive range of food and drink from local and artisan suppliers.

"I'm looking forward to working with our amazing food team across all restaurants and Hearty's to enhance and evolve customers' food and drink experience, both here at Tong and at Tingley in the near future."

Pictured: from left to right: Andy Bradley, Sarah Dwyer and Cath Westmoreland.