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New Year's honours: Terry Cross goes from corner shop to global stage

Terry Cross receives an OBE in the New Year's honours list
Terry Cross receives an OBE in the New Year's honours list Terry Cross receives an OBE in the New Year's honours list

WEST Belfast entrepreneur Terry Cross has been awarded an OBE in the New Year's honours list for services to the economy and voluntary sector.

He is chairman of Delta Print & Packaging, which he established above a corner shop in west Belfast to print business cards, headed paper and local civil service forms.

And from these humble origins, he's overseen the growth of the Delta into a multi-million pound global business employing hundreds of people at a high-tech Kennedy Way manufacturing plant in what once was one of the most economically deprived pockets in Europe.

Delta currently produces one and a half billion chip cartons a year for fast-food giant McDonald's among its many multinational clients, and as well as Mr Cross having invested £40 million into the company in the last 34 years, it currently ploughs nearly £8 million a year in wages into the city.

Mr Cross, who in 2000 purchased the 17th century Chateau de La Ligne vineyard near Bordeaux and who has become a renowned wine-maker, is also actively involved in a number of community projects.

In 2008 he was appointed as president of the British Red Cross in Northern Ireland.

He has also been actively involved in the Integrated Education Fund and Children in Crossfire, helping to bring together children across the religious divide.

Terry has also been involved in the West Belfast Partnership Boards and the West Belfast Enterprise Council as well as working with The Ireland Funds in raising funds from abroad to support programmes of peace, education and reconciliation.