Macdonald Hotels Wins 2012 Menu Innovation and Development Award for Best Breakfast

EDINBURGH, Scotland, June 6, 2012 /PRNewswire/ --

For the second time in three years, Macdonald Hotels has won the award for Best Breakfast at The Menu Innovation and Development Awards (MIDAS). The MIDAS awards aim to recognise the outstanding talents of menu development managers and group executive chefs in the multi-unit and chain restaurants sectors of the food service industry.

Alan Swinson, Catering Director of Macdonald Hotels was presented the award by Eamon Flavin, Managing Director of Delice de France sponsor of Best Breakfast.

Alan said: "It's an honour to once again win the MIDAS Award for Best Breakfast. At Macdonald Hotels & Resorts, we are immensely proud of the quality we offer to our guests and are happy that MIDAS has recognised our high standards."

Anna Longthorp from Anna's Happy Trotters, supplier of sausages to the group, commented: "We are delighted that Macdonald Hotels has won this award. We're fortunate to work with a hotel collection that cares so much about sourcing top quality, high welfare produce. Many hotels and restaurants are purely fixated on price and our pigs, being free range cost rather a lot more to produce than your average pig but this shows in the quality. Macdonald Hotels could source pork a lot cheaper, such as imported pork, so this just demonstrates their commitment to welfare, provenance and quality."

The privately-owned hotel group works with a small selection of UK-based suppliers, meaning its restaurant chefs can employ the best raw ingredients to construct menus based on seasonality, sustainability, flavour and provenance, ensuring all food is bursting with nutrients and flavour.

Having invested £120k last year to improve its breakfast menu, Macdonald Hotels takes the most important meal of the day very seriously. Unlike many other hotel groups, Macdonald Hotels' restaurants celebrate the best ingredients on offer across all areas of catering; breakfast, lunch, room service, conference and banqueting, using only the most fresh of ingredients. Breakfast choice at Macdonald Hotels includes:

• A range of healthy organic mueslis, fresh fruit, yogurt and granola
• Sausages from pigs raised by Anna's Happy Trotters in Free Range conditions, using only back and belly meat from breeds such as 'Duroc' and 'Maximus'
• Freshly baked all butter croissants, breads and pastries
• Freedom foods approved John Ross Jnr smoked salmon which is smoked in a 150 year old traditional kiln
• 100% Free Range eggs
• Milk from Graham's The Family Dairy

The group has been awarded over 40 AA Rosettes for its restaurants and its food promise is reflected in the recruitment of the very best in fine dining talent. John Paul Maclachlan, Executive Chef at Macdonald Marine Hotel in North Berwick, learnt his trade with Gordon Ramsay and Raymond Blanc, and Aidan Byrne, who established the British Grill at the group's Macdonald Craxton Wood Hotel near Chester, remains the youngest UK chef to have won a Michelin Star at the age of 22.

For further information about Macdonald Hotels please visit http://www.MacdonaldHotels.co.uk.

About Macdonald Hotels & Resorts:

First established in 1990 by Donald Macdonald and colleagues Macdonald Hotels & Resorts operates over 40 hotels across the UK, including Edinburgh hotels, a hotel in Bath, hotels in Manchester and a hotel in Windsor, as well as ten resorts throughout the UK and Spain. Macdonald Hotels employs over 4,400 staff and operates in excess of 4,500 hotel rooms. Its focus is on developing its strong portfolio of four and five star hotels, with each offering its own character and individuality underpinned with the quality and attention to detail expected of the Macdonald brand. As testament to the excellent level of
service the Group provides, it has on numerous occasions won several prestigious accolades, most notably the AA Hotel Group of the Year 2007-08 and the National Customer Service Awards for Leisure and Tourism.

PR Contact:
Andrea McCallum
3x1 Public Relations
19a Alva Street
Edinburgh
EH2 4PH
+44(0)131-225-7700
http://www.macdonaldhotels.co.uk