Tag Archives: spain

News, Sport

Ballymoney United Youth Academy look to net European football trophy

Fourteen young footballers from Ballymoney are looking to emulate the likes of Conor Bradley, George Saville, and Josh Magennis when they take on a host of international teams in Spain.

Ballymoney United Youth Academy’s Under 14s are travelling to Barcelona to take part in the prestigious Football Cup, pitting their skills against 100 teams from 15 different countries on April 6th and 7th.

The boys, who are being backed by payroll, HR and time attendance solution provider PayEscape, will have two full days of matches and will start by competing against Park’s Academy (England), Shannon Town United (Ireland) and CEF Bosc de Tosca B from Catalonia.

Lee Patrick, who coaches the team with Trevor McLernon, commented: “This is a significant milestone for the boys and should really help them in their careers and in making lifelong memories.

“We currently compete in the Premier Section of the South Belfast League, but this is the first time we have competed in the Football Cup and represents a great opportunity for our players to test themselves against international opposition.

“It’s going to be a tough, but we’re going to do everything we can to bring the trophy back to Northern Ireland.”

Ballymoney-based PayEscape is doing its bit to support Ballymoney United Youth Academy, sponsoring the team £1000 on its international adventure.

This has gone towards the first team kit that the players will be wearing in Spain during the two-day tournament.

Managing Director John Borland picked up the story: “We are passionate about the communities we operate in and Ballymoney is home to our head office, so it made perfect sense to back a local football team.

“Sport is important in the development of young people, and we know what a great opportunity it will be for the boys to take on sides from different parts of the world, with their different playing and coaching styles.

“We wish Ballymoney United Youth Academy all the best in the competition – bring that title home!”

Coach Trevor McLernon concluded: “A big thank you to PayEscape for supporting the team and for providing us with our playing kit for the tournament – we are all extremely grateful.”

PayEscape offers cloud-based Payroll, HR and Time and Attendance Solutions for hundreds of businesses operating in the UK.

The company, which has also backed the Northern Ireland Air Ambulance Service, removes the administrative burden from the client, delivering simple, effective, and reliable payroll and people management solutions for the likes of University Academy 92, Air France-KLM Group, and vehicle manufacturer IVECO.

For further information, please visit www.ballymoneyyouthacademy.co.uk or www.payescape.com

News, Security

WSO2 Renews Long-Term Contract with Securitas Direct – Leading European Security Provider in Spain

WSO2’s API Manager enables Securitas Direct to expand its digital offering and better connect with its partner ecosystem

London – 9th March 2022, – WSO2, the leader in digital transformation technology, today announced that a long-term contract with a key customer, Securitas Direct in Spain, a subsidiary of Verisure Group, the leading European provider of professionally monitored security systems, has been renewed and expanded. Securitas Direct SA has been able to adopt an API-first strategy thanks to WSO2 API Manager, which has been architected and deployed in two locations within the organisation to ensure optimum availability. The platform now serves as the foundation for Securitas Direct to further expand its digital offerings by better connecting with its partner ecosystem. Additionally, utilising WSO2 solutions, Securitas Direct has built a simple, scalable architecture. The platform uses a microservices-driven approach, allowing developers to reuse individual components to quickly build new applications and troubleshoot issues.

Securitas Direct SA was founded in 1992 as part of the Verisure group of companies in Sweden. With 24/7 response services, Verisure accounts for over 4 million customers in 16 countries in Europe and Latin America. Today, Verisure boasts some of the strongest growth and retention rates globally in consumer-facing services, demonstrating its exceptional service levels and strong value proposition to its customers.

Initially, Securitas Direct SA required to transition from a traditional service-oriented architecture model to an API-based self-service model. The main goals were to improve autonomy in terms of integration needs and improve integration governance and security while dealing with high traffic on IoT APIs, customer apps, and business systems.

Luis Vásconez, head of platform services and solutions at Securitas Direct states, “WSO2 API Manager has been a critical component in our transition to an API-first approach as it provides improved governance, security and autonomy to our development teams with ongoing integration requirements. The solution has been deployed in multiple regions to avoid any downtime that could jeopardise our customers’ experience and the services we provide. WSO2 support has allowed us to provide a secure, seamless experience to our customers which is a key priority for us and one of the reasons we have now renewed and expanded our contract.”

Since implementing WSO2 API Manager, Securitas Direct has seen numerous advantages. This includes increased service availability, improved development efficiency through improved dependency mapping and handling. Teams that integrate beyond team domain services are more autonomous, allowing for team growth and velocity of 10% in the last year and an estimated 10-15% growth in the coming years, all this while maintaining governance for the APIs’ entire lifecycle.

Ricardo Diniz, VP & GM UKI and Southern Europe added, “Securitas Direct is a long-time user of our products and services. The organisation appreciates the simplicity of the solution as well as the considerable support we provide, particularly in important architectural and decision-making areas. WSO2 is well-known as one of the leading solutions in the market, enabling easy and secure API exposure to both internal and external consumers, as well as design and runtime governance for the APIs’ entire lifecycle. We also provide flexible deployment models that adapt to the customer’s infrastructure, while maintaining seamless service discovery for developers, which is one of the reasons that Securitas Direct continues to work with us.”

Food and Drink

Spanish sauce company signs major supermarket deal after Covid sales rise

SABOR DE AMOR has signed a major supermarket deal and achieved a 40% rise in online sales during the Coronavirus pandemic.

The popular Spanish sauce firm revealed Sainsbury’s will stock its Paella in a Bottle and Salsa Brava products at 70 of its stores from Monday February 15.

Based in Wrexham, director Dr Beatriz Albo said they are one of 10 producers nationwide to feature in the retailer’s Taste of the Future campaign and was proud of the progress made since launching the company in 2015.

She confirmed Covid-19 had impacted upon their traditional sales at food festivals and events, but a surge in orders via their website and independent outlets – including farm shops across Wales and England – had given them a much-needed boost.

“Like most businesses we have been affected by the pandemic and had to adapt to new ways of working and a decline in revenue initially,” said Beatriz.

“But we have kept going and were determined to keep channels open with the leading suppliers and supermarkets interested in stocking our range of sauces before the Coronavirus struck.

“We were already in discussions with Sainsbury’s and are delighted to get that deal done; it’s a proud moment for us, especially given we are one of just 10 producers in the country to be a part of this campaign, and the only one from North Wales.”

With the support of son Albert, Beatriz secured a contract for Sabor de Amor to be on the shelves of Sainsbury’s stores in Greater London, Yorkshire, the Midlands and the South East.

She has built the range of salsas and sauces using family recipes to create incredible flavours, having arrived in North Wales from Salamanca, Spain, as a biology student in the early nineties.

Plans for a new food service were scuppered by the initial lockdown in March last year, but she persevered and has big plans for the coming months, including the relaunch of an old favourite.

“A lot of people have been asking me to bring back the Sofrito slow roasted tomato sauce I produced years ago, so we will be doing that in the run up to summer,” said Beatriz, winner of the BBC’s Top of the Shops series Sauces category in 2018.

“One of the positives we took from this challenging time is the feedback we have received from customers, especially those who bought our products because their holidays had been cancelled and they wanted to try and recreate that taste of the Mediterranean from home.

“That meant a lot to me, so we are glad to be able to bring Sofrito back in addition to our other sauces, which have proven very popular in lockdown.”

She added: “All we can do is thank our loyal customers and work hard to make a success of this new supermarket campaign and the other ideas we have in mind for the year ahead, depending on restrictions around the pandemic.

“If it goes well it could be rolled out to be even more stores, and then possibly nationwide, so we are hopeful and confident for the future.”

Visit www.sabordeamor.com for more information and the latest news from Sabor de Amor.