Food & Drink from Ireland

A S UPPL E ME NT TO 2013-14 Edition

Food & Drink from Ireland

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Your guide to artisan & speciality products from the island of Ireland INCLUDES: DAIRY BAKERY MEAT & SEAFOOD CHOCOLATE BREAKFAST CEREALS JAMS & PRESERVES RAPESEED OIL SOFT DRINKS SEASONINGS & MUCH MORE Plus: ‘Local Heroes’ chosen by Sawers of Belfast, Dublin’s Fallon & Byrne and other top retailers

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Opinion

OUTLOOK FOR 2013 4

: Cumbria’s Philip Cranston climate ‘Even if the economic changed improves, people have the way they shop’

BETH HEATH 13

CHANTAL COADY 7 “Opening new stores and getting them going is pretty intense”

DELI OF THE MONTH 48

“I want to make a surplus and I’ll beat people down on price,” says the Ludlow festival organiser

We talk to Chris Morton, MD of Bodnant Welsh Food April 2013 · Vol 14 Issue 3

THE DELI OF . 52 MONTH.. Jackson

Pete Earthy’s you've got tells us: ‘If ple will peo a niche, you’ support

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‘The way I look at it, inheriting recipes can be quite dangerous’

‘Let’s put it bluntly: how would we have got a bank loan?’

· Vol 14 Issue 1 January-February 2013

Mick Whitworth

ive years ago I visited producers in Cork and Tipperary for Fine Food Digest’s first pull-out guide to food & drink from Ireland.

The south of the ‘food isle’ has always had a reputation for great food and, in particular, great primary produce – lush green grass always means great beef and dairy products – so my problem was not finding quality artisan producers to visit but deciding who to leave out.

At the time, putting together a similar tour of Northern Ireland would have been more challenging. There simply wasn’t the critical mass of quality producers to put together a really meaty guide.

How things have changed.

Numerically, of course, the south still dominates the Irish artisan food and drink scene. But two consecutive Great Taste Supreme Champion titles for Northern Ireland have helped transform perceptions of speciality food from the north.

And it’s not just the image that has changed: new artisan businesses are popping up in the north at an unprecedented rate and producers there have raised their sights above the domestic market, with both product quality and packaging now targeted at the needs of premium export markets.

So, despite all the issues that can divide the island of Ireland, there has been a degree of convergence in this key part of their economies. For

WESTCOMBE’S TOM CARVER 12

DELI OF THE MONTH 46

small firms in both countries, crossborder trading often provides the first opportunity for exports and growth, and their two main state support bodies, Invest NI and Bord Bia, have been quietly working together for a while to promote food and drink from the whole of Ireland to the rest of the world.

Barry McBride, who heads Invest NI’s international business operations, tells me that while major companies north and south might see themselves as competitors, this really doesn’t apply among small food firms.

“There’s plenty of business for artisan producers in both parts of Ireland,” he says. And north and south share many common marketing themes, he adds, with “a clean, green environment contributing to premium products with heritage and provenance”.

So this year, with help from Invest NI and Bord Bia, we’ve developed our first Fine Food Digest guide to food & drink from the whole island of Ireland, featuring over 50 producers keen to offer something new to speciality stores throughout the UK. We’ve also asked eight top retailers in the Republic and Northern Ireland to give us their pick of the best food & drink from their part of the world.

Whether you’re a Brit who hasn’t looked across the Irish Sea for a while, an Irish retailer in search of inspiration or a distributor looking for up-andcoming artisan brands, I hope this guide will give you food for thought.

Mick Whitworth is editor of Fine Food Digest

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39 CHEF’S SELECTION Phil Fanning of Paris House chooses Californian fennel pollen, Aylesbury snail caviar and Somerset smoked eel

Ice cream made with Dorset Blue Vinny?

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4 NEWS 17 WORLD CHEESE AWARDS 25 CHEESEWIRE 31 S PICKLES & CHUTNEY 35 COFFEE 37 CHELTENHAM PREVIEW 39 CHEF’S SELECTION 44 SHELF TALK 43 & EASTER E’SWheeler Chris of Stoke VALENTIN Park in Bucks chooses Barkham Blue, Vallebona wild boar salame and Truffle Hunter black truffle butter

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Are you new to Fine Food Digest?

As well as reaching FFD’s regular readership of nearly 6,000 UK speciality food buyers and suppliers, this special guide to Food & Drink from Ireland is being widely distributed throughout Ireland and the UK during 2013-14.

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Published 10 times a year by the Guild of Fine Food, organiser of the internationally recognised Great Taste scheme, FFD is the authorative magazine of the speciality food trade.

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Printed by: Blackmore, Dorset, UK © Great Taste Publications Ltd and The Guild of Fine Food Ltd 2013. Reproduction of whole or part of this magazine without the publisher’s prior permission is prohibited. The opinions expressed in articles and advertisements are not necessarily those of the editor or publisher. The publisher cannot accept responsibility for unsolicited manuscripts, photographs or illustrations.

A supplement to Fine Food Digest

www.finefoodworld.co.uk Food & Drink from Ireland 2013-14

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“Creating a reputation for good food is strengthening Northern Ireland’s economy” Alastair Hamilton chief executive, Invest Northern Ireland “Winning the Supreme Champion title in the Great Taste Awards in successive years is a remarkable achievement that highlights the outstanding flavours, quality and provenance of Northern Ireland food and drink.

“The two Supreme Champions were both butchers – McCartney’s of Moira in 2011 and its near-neighbour Hannan Meats in 2012 – and the latter also created a UK record last year for the most gold stars won by an individual company.

“In all, 47 of our companies, mostly artisan producers, secured almost 200 gold stars in 2012 – a record for Northern Ireland. Virtually every food and drink sector in Northern Ireland featured in the awards and five of our winners were listed among the Top 50 Foods in Britain, chosen from among nearly 9,000 entries.

“Food writers have acclaimed the Glenarm shorthorn fillet steak from last year’s Supreme Champion, Hannan Meats, in particular, as being ‘the best in the world’. Quite an accolade for a relatively small producer that sources its meat exclusively from local farms.

“Creating a reputation for good food and great places to eat is helping to strengthen the Northern Ireland economy and providing greater employment opportunities.

The industry is also benefiting from EU Protected Food Name status for three outstanding products: Lough Neagh Eels, Comber

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New Season Potatoes and Armagh Bramley Apples.

“Some of our award-winning products are now on sale in independent retailers and delis across Britain, and chefs such as Mark Hix, Marcus Wareing, Raymond Blanc, Heston Blumenthal and James Martin are featuring Northern Ireland products on their menus. Other producers are keen to do business in Great Britain and to work with customers there in creating new and stimulating taste experiences for consumers.

“Our Great Taste successes clearly demonstrate that artisan food in Northern Ireland is in a very healthy state, developing and marketing original and premium quality products that consumers in Great Britain, the Republic of Ireland and further afield in Europe, Asia, the US and the Middle East are increasingly including in their shopping baskets. They know that they can count on our companies to come up with new, richly flavoured products that they really can trust as being both tasty and wholesome.

“Food and drink in Northern Ireland is now a £4 billion industry, our biggest manufacturer and one that operates to the highest EU safety and hygiene standards. Most of our artisan producers, especially those in key sectors such as meat, dairy and poultry operate very close to farms which are their primary suppliers ensuring traceability throughout the supply chain. It’s also an industry with a rich heritage, as well as highly skilled and easily motivated people.

“They continue to work closely with farmers and other suppliers of ingredients, local, national and international, to create and produce innovative and memorable products that consumers everywhere can really enjoy.”

Food & Drink from Ireland 2013-14

Pushing against an open door Producers north and south of the Irish border can find a willing customer base across the sea, where anything from the British Isles is still widely viewed as ‘local’

I

n Spring 2012, Selfridges food halls in London and Birmingham hosted a major promotion under the banner Delicious Ireland.

Co-ordinated by Invest Northern Ireland and the Irish food board, Bord Bia, it brought together products from around 50 producers and included cookery sessions with leading chefs, from Ballymaloe Cookery School’s legendary Darina Allen to Niall McKenna of the Belfast Cookery School, who recreated a menu served on the Titanic.

Products assembled for the attention of English food shoppers ranged from Gubbeen cheese from West Cork and hot smoked salmon from the Burren Smokehouse in Co Clare to yoghurt from Clandeboye Estate and oatflake biscuits from Grace’s bakery, both in Co Down.

A three-week promotion is a serious commitment by one of Europe’s bestknown department stores and shows its respect for what its then food boss Ewan Venters – now MD of Fortnum & Mason – described at the time as the “credible qualities” of food from the island of Ireland.

Gillian Swaine, who looks after promotion of artisan foods at Bord Bia’s London office, says: “Irish food products have a good reputation in the UK, and we’re known for quality, natural products, which means it can be easier for our companies to come over and open doors, especially in the speciality sector.”

There’s another advantage that all Irish products enjoy in the UK – and one that is not necessarily shared by the Brits when they try to sell in the Republic. “We’re quite lucky in that Irish producers are still regarded as ‘local’ in the UK,” say Elisabeth Ryan of Sheridan’s, the Co Meath-based cheese wholesaler that distributes a number of Irish brands in England on the back of its own cheese deliveries. “You couldn’t necessarily say the reverse was true.”

That point is echoed by Denis Connolly of soft drinks maker DP Connolly & Sons. While “being Irish is not enough” when it comes to cracking the UK market, he tells FFD: “The nice thing is that Irish is almost seen as local in Great Britain, whereas in Ireland ‘local’ means ‘from the next village’.”

Connolly has been getting closer to UK buyers than many of his compatriots, having opened his own warehouse operation in south London nearly two years ago. “We found it difficult to get anyone to distribute for us in the UK,” he says, “so now we have a little premises in Battersea, and I have a girl in a van, knocking on doors.”

Distribution remains one of the biggest headaches for potential exporters north and south of the Irish border, and while Connolly has picked up around 25 small café and deli clients in the London – in addition to Selfridges – he says the Battersea operation has yet to pay its way. What he needs is other Irish producers to sell through him into the London market.

“We’d be more than happy to talk to people about going in there with us,” he says, “because it’s hard to get that traction at the start.”

According to Gillian Swaine, this kind of low-level co-operation between smaller producers is already happening in their home market and is to be fostered in the UK too. “In Cork or Clare we would already have people pooling resources and sharing vans.

It has worked well within Ireland, and we’re looking at that for the UK, because distribution is one of the main challenges for artisan producers dealing with a lot of independents.”

Swaine says Bord Bia has long been encouraging “co-opetition” on routes to market, with companies co-operating behind the scenes to get product as far as the retail store.

“Then, once they go on the shelf, it’s game on,” she says.

A supplement to Fine Food Digest

market overview Around 50 producers from both sides of the Irish border shared in a joint promotion at Selfridges last Spring, underlining the strong reputation of food from the island of Ireland

They might be part of the UK, but smaller Northern Irish producers face many of the same issues in reaching shops that cannot afford to buy by the pallet-load. But Barry McBride, executive director of international business at Invest NI, says there have been “encouraging developments” on transport. “Hannan Meats, for instance, has drawn together a small group of producers such as Abernethy Butter and is shipping their products

with its meat in its own refrigerated vehicles to Great Britain.”

McBride says there has been “significant growth” in Northern Ireland’s artisan sector in the past five years, influenced to a degree by publicity for the country’s Great Taste successes but also by farms driven to diversify by tough commodity markets.

Dairy farmers, for example, have been moving into ice cream, and there are signs of growth in artisan

cheese – a sector virtually absent from the north until recently. “There are currently around five farmhouse cheese projects,” McBride says, “again influenced by milk price volatility, and also by the introduction of cheesemaking courses at Loughry College.”

Most recently, he says, there has been an upsurge in chutney and relish makers – largely home-based businesses – and several newcomers have arisen in bakery, building on

Northern Ireland’s long-standing bakery tradition.

McBride continues: “One of the most interesting developments over the past five years has been the emergence of a deli industry in Northern Ireland.

“While there’ve been some interesting newcomers, longer established delis such as Arcadia and Sawers, both in Belfast, McKee’s in Holywood, Co Down and Bruces Hill Farm Shop in Antrim, have helped substantially to support the growth of artisans.

“We’ve always had a strong tradition of independents and corner shops but little in terms of delis until recently. Farm shops have also experienced strong growth and some have diversified into their own products such as Cloughbane Farm Foods in Pomeroy, Co Tyrone.”

In the Republic, he adds, speciality food stores such as Donnybrook Fair and Fallon & Byrne have encouraged Northern Ireland’s artisan producers, just as they have nurtured their own.

Bord Bia’s Gillian Byrne says the speciality retail sector in the south has continued to do well despite the country’s economic woes. “Shops like Avoca are real destinations, and even at times of hardship people still want that bit of luxury.

“It’s also a really good testbed – it’s where a lot of artisan producers start out, and those retailers are very supportive.”

But she adds: “It’s a small market.

That’s why we need to look outside Ireland.” www.investni.com www.bordbia.ie

“Small food businesses underpin local communities – and Ireland’s image” Aidan Cotter chief executive, Bord Bia “Small food businesses in Ireland continue to demonstrate strong growth, and prospects for the coming year remain positive.

“This is demonstrated by our recent research which revealed that 76% of small food business view their prospects as good or very good, and as a sector they have seen growth of 7%.

“In January we held our annual Small Business Open Day, themed A supplement to Fine Food Digest

Resilience and Progress in 2013, which 170 of our small food and drink client companies attended.

“Bord Bia works with over 400 small food businesses with an annual turnover of some €400 million and during the past year 189 of these were awarded almost €1 million in marketing grants from Bord Bia. “This year we will see many of these small firms travel with us to international trade fairs such as the Speciality & Fine Food Fair in London and BioFach in Germany, the largest organic trade fair in the world.

“Small food and drink businesses are key contributors to the future prosperity of the industry.

Their survival and growth also underpins the wider local community and the image of Ireland as a provider of high quality, innovative and sustainable food.

“Supporting a dynamic and growth-oriented small business sector remains central to Bord Bia’s strategic plans and programmes.”

Food & Drink from Ireland 2013-14

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To learn more about Ireland’s speciality food and drink producers, speak to Bord Bia – Irish Food Board

Growing the success of Irish food & drink

For more information contact: Gillian Swaine +44 20 7307 3555 Gillian.swaine@bordbia.ie

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Bord Bia – Irish Food Board 201 Great Portland Street London, W1W 5AB

Food & Drink from Ireland 2013-14

www.bordbia.ie

A supplement to Fine Food Digest

Guide to producers Blackthorn Foods

Cirillo Chocolate

www.blackthornfoods.co.uk

www.cirillochocolate.co.uk

Sisters Dorothy Bittles, Jenny Lowry and Cathy Johnston have been making their Melting Pot fudge bars since 2004 and now supply high-end retailers such as Partridges and Whole Foods Market in the UK, as well as stores in the US and Netherlands.

Each batch is made using open pots rather than the usual fudge cookers, and is beaten, hand-cut and hand-wrapped to ensure a homemade taste.

Eleven flavours are currently available including honeycomb, chocolate, Baileys & white chocolate, rum & raisin and stem ginger & dark chocolate, as well as Rocky Road.

The brand is carried by Hider Foods and Cotswold Fayre in England, The Cress Co in Scotland and Simply Wild and Fainne Oir Foods in the Irish Republic.

Finding a niche in the competitive chocolate arena is tricky, but Cirillo Chocolate’s handmade gluten-free bars have done just that.

Born out of the founder’s necessity to find a gluten-free chocolate for her coeliac son, Cirillo Chocolate even produces a gluten- and dairy-free bar for those on more restricted diets.

Currently Cirillo Chocolate is only stocked in selected outlets in Northern Ireland, but it has its sights set on the UK market.

Erin Grove Preserves www.eringrove.com

Based in the heart of the Fermanagh Lakelands, Erin Grove produces preserves, chutneys and marmalades, which it supplies to a number of retailers in the local area.

All its products are handmade in small batches in the traditional way and the range extends to over 30 different varieties including old favourites such as strawberry and rhubarb & ginger, as well as more modern options such as onion marmalade and sweet chilli jam.

The brand is now looking for UK stockists.

Keeping it in the family Wicklow Farmhouse Cheese www.wicklowfarmhousecheeseltd.ie

W

hile some are of Ireland’s original groundbreaking artisan cheese-makers are struggling to find a new generation to carry on production, one of the newest, Wicklow Farmhouse Cheese, looks to have a good future.

The business was started in 2005 by small-scale dairy farmer John Hempenstall and his wife, and within three years had taken the Best Irish Cheese title at the World Cheese Awards for its blue brie-style Wicklow Blue.

Donegal Rapeseed Oil Co www.donegalrapeseedoilco.com

Founded in July 2009, Donegal Rapeseed Oil Co is very much a crossborder business. Its oil is produced using crops grown by specially selected small farms dispersed throughout Co Donegal, where the business is headquartered. But the oil itself is processed just over the border in Co Tyrone, Northern Ireland.

The firm also produces a selection of flavoured oils (chilli, lemon, and garlic) and a honey and mustard dressing.

Since then it has launched the double-cream brie Wicklow Baun and the mild cheddar-style Wicklow Gold, which is available in plain, nettle & chive, basil & garlic, tomato & herb and seaweed versions. “It’s really a cross between a cheddar and a Swiss mountain cheese,” says Hempenstall. “It’s nutty and sweet.”

He adds: “We’re in a good position now. The age profile of most Irish cheese-makers is causing concern, but my daughter Mary has taken on the recipes and is now our main cheese producer.”

Clandeboye Estate www.clandeboye.co.uk

The Clandeboye Estate uses milk from its own Holstein and Jersey herds to produce a range of natural, Greekstyle and flavoured artisan yoghurts.

Said to be the only cows’ yoghurt produced in Northern Ireland, Clandeboye yoghurt is handmade using traditional techniques that provide a rich, creamy texture without the high fat content.

In addition to the natural and Greek varieties, the range also features raspberry, strawberry and toffee & caramel.

In May 2012, Clandeboye Estate launched the Heavenly Herd brand of layered yoghurts, which includes three flavours in family-sized 500ml tubs: lemon curd, Senga strawberry and mango.

Wicklow Blue was the maker’s first award winner A supplement to Fine Food Digest

Food & Drink from Ireland 2013-14

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fields & yields

Rich pastures mean rich pickings Northern Ireland is known for its stunning landscape, but the land is rich and productive too.

Whetted your appetite?

Visit www.buynifood.com or contact:

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Robin Barnett E: robin.barnett@investni.com Mob: 078 1717 3513

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Michelle Charrington E: michelle.charrington@investni.com Mob: 078 1717 3514

www.buynifood.com 6

Food & Drink from Ireland 2013-14

A supplement to Fine Food Digest

guide to producers

Our local heroes

Ireland’s answer to Luscombe?

Glastry Farm Ice Cream

Laura Brown Arcadia Delicatessen Belfast Abernethy hand churned butter Abernethy Butter has recently been listed in Fortnum & Mason. It’s made by hand using traditional methods, with cream bought from a local farmer, who pasteurises his own milk. The butter is all hand-wrapped in greaseproof and brown paper.

Broighter Gold rapeseed oil Made in Limavady, in north-west Northern Ireland this product is higher in Omega 3 than olive oil and has a higher smoking point so it can be used at higher temperatures.

www.glastryfarm.com

The Taylor family has been farming dairy cows and producing milk since 1856 at Glastry Farm on the Ards Peninsula in Co Down. Fifth generation Will Taylor is the man behind the farm’s ice cream.

Glastry’s current flavours include vanilla bean & Kilbeggan – an Irish whiskey based ice cream made from the award-winning Kilbeggan Irish whiskey – as well as coconut, cappuccino Milano and raspberry & lavender. It also produces sorbet in pear, apple schnapps, Champagne and raspberry ruffle flavours.

Glastry’s retail range is widely available across Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, but as yet it doesn’t have a distribution network in the rest of the UK.

DP Connolly & Sons www.dpconnollyandsons.ie

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ny similarity between DP Connolly & Sons’ range of all-natural soft drinks from Co Laois and a well-know premium brand from the south-west of England is not entirely coincidental.

When FFD asks if this is a “Luscombe for the Irish market”, company co-founder Denis Connolly tells us: “Yes, on the button.”

Founded four years ago, the DP Connolly brand is sold in many upmarket Irish outlets, including Avoca and Fallon & Byrne.

It has already been picked up by

Selfridges in the UK, and to get round problems of wholesale distribution from Ireland Denis Connolly has set up his own warehouse, in Battersea.

“We’re in about 25 delis and coffee shops around London,” he says.

“The nice thing for us is that ‘Irish’ is almost seen as local in the UK. So a lot of delis that would normally carry Luscombe or James White will take ours as an alternative.”

DP Connolly’s products include lemonades, juices and elderflowerinfused drinks.

Another premium sideline is Irish matcha porridge, sold in a novel glass bottle. “We’ve taken something from Japan, matcha tea, which is renowned for all sorts of wonderful things but doesn’t taste all that nice, and made something more suitable for Western tastes,” Connolly says.

Denis Connolly, whose premium bottled products extend to an Irish matcha tea porridge

Moyallon dry-cured bacon This bacon from Hannan Meats is a proper old-fashioned style product that’s a repeat purchase for those who try it once.

Red Dog Foods sour cherry chilli jam A favourite in my own kitchen, this chilli jam is made in rural Co Down by a Californian. Its blend of sweet, sour and heat makes it perfect for accompanying sausages and burgers, stirring into curries and marinating meat on the barbecue.

Suki Tea Belfast Brew tea pyramids This Irish breakfast tea is a great tasting brew that is also Fairtrade. www.arcadiadeli.co.uk

Gracehill Fine Foods www.gracehillfoods.co.uk

Created by Scotsman Hugh Anderson, Gracehilll Fine Foods produces traditional black and white pudding using recipes derived from the Scottish Highlands.

Authenticity is paramount, says Anderson, and the ingredients used for the puddings are sourced from local suppliers. All the recipes are made with fresh onion.

The puddings are currently supplied to the retail and foodservice trades in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. Stockists include Carnbrooke Meats, Get Fresh, Fresh2U and The Hastings Group Culloden & Slieve Donard Hotels.

A supplement to Fine Food Digest

Mash Direct www.mashdirect.com

Established nine years ago as part of a farm diversification initiative, Mash Direct produces quick-serve potato and vegetable products including colcannon, potato cakes and cauliflower cheese.

Emphasising provenance and traceability, the Co Down-based family farm produces the majority of the raw materials with the rest sourced from the UK and Ireland. It produces more than 30 retail lines, all of which carry the Mash Direct brand and are free from artificial additives, preservatives and colourings.

Mash Direct vegetables are all steam-cooked and packaged on the family farm and distributed via chilled freight throughout Ireland and the UK. It has a van distribution operation based in North London, serving independent retailers in the Greater London area.

Food & Drink from Ireland 2013-14

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guide to producers

Premium chocolates at every price point Butlers Chocolates www.butlerschocolates.com

I

n one section of Butlers Chocolates’ vast Dublin factory, robotic pick-and-place technology is being used to fill selection boxes. In another, fudge cooked in traditional copper pots is being poured into trays to cool, before being turned out by hand.

Upstairs in the factory’s visitor centre, preparations are being for the arrival of 50 youngsters, who will watch a film about cocoa cultivation and spy on the production area from above, before heading off to a demo kitchen to try their hand at decorating chocolate teddy bears.

After 80 years in business, Butlers covers all the bases. It has its own chocolate cafés in Ireland, sells to higher-end supermarkets, exports to the likes of Selfridges and John Lewis in the UK and reaches into the garden centre and speciality markets, offering everything from grab-andgo bars to pricier gift selections.

“We’re not interested in selling to Asda,” says marketing director Aisling Walsh, “but it’s all about

having a wide range to suit every price point.

“In the UK, it’s usually £5 to £10 at retail, although a nice gift might go over that. And not all products are suitable for all channels. Waitrose would never sell a 1kg box, but a high-street deli likes to have those ‘wow’ pieces in the window.”

While Butlers’ business is built on assortments (every box including at least some hand-made items) it now has strong sales in premium bars too.

And demand for “affordable luxury” has been addressed this year with Butlers’ new 10-portion hot chocolate drink packs, RRP £3.95, launched in the UK at IFE13.

Orchard Organics www.orchardorganics.com

Ann’s Pantry annspantry@sky.com

John Agnew has been running Ann’s Pantry for more than three decades, taking over from parents Sean and Ann who established the bakery during the late ’60s.

It offers a wide range of baked goods including traditional Irish breads, cakes and puddings such as rich fruit loaf and Christmas pudding using spelt flour.

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Based in Co Armagh, Orchard Organics produces the Kay’s Kitchen brand of organic preserves and chutneys.

Kay’s Kitchen uses a combination of organic ingredients, sourced from quality suppliers and its own farm, to create recipes that have been perfected over five generations.

The organic range can be found throughout Ireland from The Linen Mill, Moygashel, to Donnybrook Fair, Dublin and the Titanic Belfast Restaurant.

Food & Drink from Ireland 2013-14

Mauds

Spirited Drinks

www.mauds.co.uk

www.wearespirited.com

Mauds has been making ice cream using milk and cream from local dairy herds since 1982. “We started off selling it from our family grocers and when we realised the queue was out the door, we knew we needed a proper name for it,” explains founder David Wilson. It was named after Wilson’s grandmother Maud, who was running the business at the time.

The Carrickfergus-based firm has scoured the globe in search of fruit and herb essences to add to its ice creams and sorbets.

So far Mauds has won 129 awards and is sold in hundreds of outlets right across the island of Ireland.

Spririted Drinks is a young, forwardthinking company that was established in 2010 in Dromore, Co Down.

Alongside its Boozeberries brand, it has just relaunched Ruby Blue, a range of naturally fruity whole berry liqueurs.

Available in a choice of cranberry, wild blueberry and blackcurrant, the company’s bottle-aged liqueurs blend fruity summer berries with mellow Irish Spirit.

Currently the liqueurs are available from TheDrinkShop.com and independent off-licences.

Keeping the cheeses rolling Fivemiletown Creamery www.fivemiletown.com

O

ne of Northern Ireland’s most established food businesses, spanning both mainstream and speciality products, Co Tyrone’s Fivemiletown Creamery has continued to grow throughout the downturn.

Sales of its own branded cheese – which includes the firm’s Ballybrie, Ballyblue and Ballyoak as well as several cheddars – have increased 40% year-on-year in the island of Ireland and 25% in the rest of the UK. The brand is now valued at £4m and the producer’s Boilíe goats’ cheese brand is predicted to break the £1m barrier this year.

Fivemiletown recently acquired Causeway Cheese Co, and having grown the brand’s customer base in Northern Ireland it is now looking at speeding up the waxing process to take Causeway’s hexagonal cheddars to a wider market.

There are also plans to develop new varieties of Fivemiletown’s Boilíe Barrels, including flavours such as chilli, and a selection pack featuring crackers and relishes.

But, perhaps the biggest departure for Fivemiletown in the last few years has been the move into ice cream, made from the same milk that is supplied for cheese-making by its co-operative of family dairy farms.

“We developed our range to be superior in quality to Mövenpick but at a more competitive price,” says marketing manager Peter Dunlop, adding that feedback and sales have been very positive since its April 2012 launch.

“We are coming to the point where we need to look at investing further into capacity,” he says.

For now, Dunlop says the aim is to gain listings for the cheese range in as many UK delis and independents as possible. But if the ice cream continues to grow, the wider UK market “will be the most logical step for us to take.”

A supplement to Fine Food Digest

We provide: • Consistent top quality products • No minimum order • Responsive and personal attention • Orders dispatched within 24 hours • Delivery within 48 hours

Crossogue Preserves, a small Irish company with over 30 award winning preserves, have recently launched into the UK market with nine distinctive preserves that promote unique Irish flavours. Irish Coffee Curd, a Tipperary treat is just one of the products now available

“Sally Barnes is the greatest fish smoker in the country.”

We provide: • Consistent top quality products • No minimum order • Responsive and personal attention • Orders dispatched within 24 hours • Delivery within 48 hours

Tom Doorley Food Critic and Author, formerly of the Irish Times, now with the Irish Daily Mail

Multi-award winning artisan smokery, run by mother and daughter, Sally and Joleine Barnes.

Hand-crafted smoke-cured fish from West Cork Woodcock Smokery Hand Crafted, Smoke Cured Fish from West Cork

Gortbrack Castletownshend Skibbereen West Cork Ireland

A supplement to Fine Food Digest

To place an order: Email: orders@woodcocksmokery.com Telephone: 00 353 (0)28 36232 Place an order online via our web site: www.woodcocksmokery.com

Call or email us: Tel: 00353 504 54416 info@crossoguepreserves.com www.crossoguepreserves.com

Food & Drink from Ireland 2013-14

11

TRUE REFRESHMENT FROM OUR OWN APPLE COUNTY

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Food & Drink from Ireland 2013-14

A supplement to Fine Food Digest

guide to producers

Our local heroes

Cashel Blue www.cashelblue.com

Solaris Botanicals www.solarisbotanicals.com

Simon Dougan Yellow Door Deli

Portadown, Co Armagh Broighter Gold rapeseed oil This is really good quality oil, which has a wonderful golden colour, carries flavours in dressing and is great for cooking as it has a high burning point.

Hannan’s salt aged beef I buy all my red meat from Peter Hannan. The way he ages only the very best local beef in a salt room at his premises in Moira is brilliant. The final result is spectacular. The beef is clean smelling, almost nutty, extremely tender and has the best beefy flavour I have ever tasted in a piece of meat.

Solaris Botanicals is a family-run business in the West of Ireland, specialising in the blending of whole leaf organic teas. This year it has launched a range of biodegradable silken pyramid tea bags.

Solaris deals directly with tea plantations in India and China and hand-blends only the first flush, which are the highest quality leaves. It doesn’t use aromas or flavourings and all its packaging is biodegradable and sustainably sourced.

It also offers own label services and bespoke blends for individual businesses.

Solaris Botanicals is currently available in Ireland, the UK, Germany, Sweden, Norway and The Middle East, with clients including The Four Seasons and The Savoy Hotel.

Mike Frazer Bruce’s Hill Farm Shop Ballymena, Co Antrim

The creaminess of the crop Kilbeggan Organic Foods www.kilbegganorganicfoods.com

H

is creamy Kilbeggan porridge oats may have succeeded “more by luck than by design” but demand for organic farmer Pat Lalor’s products is heavily outstripping supply.

“I would never say my organic oats are better than conventional,” says the ultra-modest Lalor. “It’s up to the consumer.”

But customers from the US to Singapore have voted with their wallets, and in the space of just two

Kearney Blue cheese This young company produces a world class blue cheese, Its production is very small and you have to order it advance if you need any quantity of it at all.

We definitely need more NI producers of artisan style cheeses.

A soft cows’ milk blue was something of a rarity in Ireland when Cashel Blue was first produced by Louis Grub back in 1984. These days it’s an established alternative to traditional stronger blues.

At six weeks, the cheese is firm and creamy edged with a tanginess.

By three months, it is richer, fuller and rounder, developing in creaminess as it matures for up to six months.

This year sees the launch of Cashel Blue Cream Cheese, a 100% natural, spreadable version of the original cheese.

Although it sold in supermarkets, Cashel Blue continues to earn a place in UK independent cheesemongers and other premium retailers.

Our local heroes

years the Kilbeggan brand has gone from zero to selling the equivalent of 100,000 1kg bags, taking all the oats that Pat Lalor can produce at Ballard Organic Farm in Co Westmeath.

He has been farming organically here since 1999. While he won’t say organic is better he reckons the combination of his terroir and the way he manages his land – the crop rotation, for example, and the application of plenty of “you-knowwhat” from his cattle herd – must account for the exceptionally creamy texture of his oats, which are stocked

by Dean & Deluca in New York and Selfridges in London.

Broighter Gold rapeseed oil An artisan product from Broighter Farm near Limavady, it’s a cold pressed natural oil with Omega 3, 6, 9 and Vitamin E. It also has half the saturated fat of olive oil. It’s an excellent product.

Moyallon Quality Foods range This is an excellent range of sauces, relishes, chutneys and cooking ingredients. The chef Paul Clarke, who produces this range, cares deeply about the the ingredients he uses.

Glastry Farm ice cream Glastry Farm’s ice cream is truly homemade from premium milk produced by the Taylor’s pedigree herd in Co Down. Great tasting ice cream.

I also highly recommend their pear sorbet.

Walter Ewing’s smoked Glenarm salmon Walter Ewing has been my fish supplier for many years. The quality and freshness of the fish he collects from our local port is brilliant. He has smoked his own salmon for a long time, although he has only recently told the world he has this beautiful product. He’s now selling into Dubai and around the world.

Maine lemonade Maine Mineral Water Co was founded in Ballymena, Co Antrim in 1949, and named after one of the rivers which flowed through the town, the River Maine. They produce an extensive range of traditional lemonades of the highest quality which have a nostalgic “how lemonade used to be” quality about them. It is an undiscovered gem!

www.yellowdoordeli.co.uk

www.bruceshillfarmshop.com

A supplement to Fine Food Digest

Food & Drink from Ireland 2013-14

13

Release the flavours in your food

Ummera Smoked Products Ltd Inchybridge, Timoleague, Co. Cork, WND-86-6WN, Ireland Tel: +353 23 8846644 info@ummera.com · www.ummera.com www.twitter.com/ummera www.facebook.com/ummera

Handcrafted Irish sea salt flakes lovingly produced by the O’Neills in West Cork, Ireland. Harvested by hand from the purest Grade A quality sea waters of the ruggedly beautiful Beara Peninsula which stretches out to the wild Atlantic. Rich in flavour and 100% pure and natural. Easily crumbled by hand these sea salt flakes are a must for any food lover’s kitchen and table.

A range of flavoured sea salt flakes also available.

E-mail us: info@irishatlanticsalt.ie

SELLING IRISH KETTLE COOKED CRISP BRAND* NO.1 BEST

www.odonnellscrisps.com *Source: AC Nielsen Market Track

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Food & Drink from Ireland 2013-14

A supplement to Fine Food Digest

guide to producers

Our local heroes

From strength to strength McCartney’s of Moira www.mccartneysofmoira.com

W

hen FFD calls, George McCartney is out the back, where he often is, making his Supreme Champion corned beef.

When it claimed Great Taste 2011’s top prize, McCartney’s creation thrust him and his butcher’s shop in the small town of Moira into the limelight. It also put Northern Ireland firmly on Britain’s foodie map.

The success also gave McCartney the confidence to realise his long-term ambition of expanding McCartney’s of Moira into the premises next door, despite the economic gloom.

Since opening five months ago, he says trade has been “flying” at the expanded butchery counter and in the new delicatessen, while the bistro-coffee shop is packed out every lunchtime.

It’s a clear sign of the current magnetism of Northern Irish food that Saturdays see an extra 200-250 customers arrive to buy McCartney’s wide range of in-house specialities and locally sourced products.

On the crest of a wave Paddy O’s Granola www.granola.ie

T

he simplicity of his web address – www.granola.ie – tells you Paddy O’Connell didn’t have much domestic competition when he started his artisan granola business.

The young surfer-dude-turnedentrepreneur developed a taste for quality granola while working (and surfing) in Hawaii, and couldn’t find anything to approach it back home.

He learned how to make the real thing while on a course at his aunt Darina Allen’s Ballymaloe Cookery School, and for a while produced A supplement to Fine Food Digest

McCartney adds that he’s seen a lot more small producers popping up and more Great Taste winners on shelves around the country.

While he says there’s a market out there for these producers, McCartney has had to stop his own corned beef wholesaling operation.

“The problem is we’re not just a manufacturer,” he says. “We run a big business here. You get called out to deal with customers and you have to give your time to them.”

If anything, this is a testament to his philosophy of doing things properly and consistently – a trait he says will stand budding Northern Irish producers in good stead.

“They need to keep making their product the best they can,” he says.

“It’s the attention to detail that will make it in the end.

“With my sausages, everything is weighed to the nearest gram. The recipe for our award winning pork sausages hasn’t changed over all the years.

“I could get a wee unit and start making the corned beef on a big scale but it wouldn’t be the same as George McCartney and his boys make.”

small quantities in a converted room at his parents’ home in Co Laois, often working overnight to meet orders.

But it was hiring space and production expertise at a commercial bakery in Drogheda in 2009-10 that enabled him to grow the business from a farmers’ market operation to selling to top stores across Ireland, including Avoca and Caviston‘s. He’s in supermarkets too, but says “speciality is my bread and butter”, pointing out that he uses expensive Irish oatflakes to give him a clear point of difference from the mass market.

Paddy O’s is now part of Bord Bia’s market access programme in London and O’Connell says: “My main goal is to get onto shelves in the UK.”

Kitchen Bakes

Joe Doyle & David McClean Donnybrook Fair

www.kitchenbakes.co.uk

Dublin

A family-owned business that’s been operating for over 25 years, Kitchen Bakes has built up a strong reputation for its sweet and savoury products.

The range, supplied predominantly to the trade in Northern Ireland, includes sausage rolls with a lightly spiced filling, which are available uncooked or cooked. It also produces tarts with a variety of fruit fillings as well as a number of hand-finished tray bakes and pastries.

Burren Smokehouse smoked salmon, mackerel, trout and cheese Set up in 1989 by Birgitta and Peter Curtin in Lisdoonvarna, County Clare, Burren Smokehouse ships its produce all over the world and has become a tourist attraction in its own right.

Hadji Bey’s Turkish Delight We love Hadji Bey’s Turkish Delight for its rich history and distinctive flavours. It was established in Co Cork by an Armenian immigrant, Harutun Batmazian, in 1902. In 2010, LC Confectionary brought the product back to the Irish market.

Kooky Dough This Dublin-based cookie dough company is distributed all over Ireland, and is in Waitrose in the UK. We love their delicious dough, interactive website and inventive accompanying recipes.

The Scullery www.thescullery.ie

From handmade Christmas puddings to relishes and pickles, The Scullery brings a contemporary twist to traditional recipes, with the added assurance that all its products are gluten-, preservative- and additive-free.

Its product range, some of which is stocked in Selfridges, includes individual handmade puddings and compotes such as onion marmalade, cucumber pickle, spicy tomato sauce, Christmas puddings and brandy butter.

Murphy’s Ice Cream Murphy’s Ice Cream is made in Dingle, County Kerry, using milk from a rare, indigenous breed of Kerry cow. There’s a range of unusual flavours, from sea salt & caramel to raspberry & Kerry cream.

Stable Diet This family-owned company is renowned in the Irish market for cakes, breakfast cereals and flapjacks.

Its philosophy is “nature knows best”, which is a philosophy we also stand by. www.donnybrookfair.ie

Paddy O’Connell: ‘Speciality is my bread and butter’ Food & Drink from Ireland 2013-14

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John Downey & Son Quality Organic Foods from the rich green pastures of the green isles

Delicious Irish Potato Crisps Grown & Cooked on our Farm

www.keoghs.ie

Ireland’s Leading Organic Food Company John Downey & Son were the first butchers in Ireland to win two gold, two silver and one bronze award in the prestigious Great Taste Awards in 2003, 2004 & 2007. We have also won a 1-star gold in Great Taste 2011 & 2012, plus a gold medal for our spiced beef sponsored by Bord Bia now sold all year round and countrywide.

Keogh’s Farm johndowney@organicfoodsireland.com www. organicfoodsireland.com

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16

Food & Drink from Ireland 2013-14

A supplement to Fine Food Digest

guide to producers

Our local heroes

Kooky Dough www.kookydough.ie

Woodcock Smokery www.woodcocksmokery.com

Rachel Firth Fallon & Byrne Dublin Gubbeen cheese Not a new kid on the block, but one of our perennial favourites, Gubbeen cheese, made on the family farm in West Cork, is really an iconic Irish brand now. It’s the perfect lunchtime cheese with a big chunk of soda bread and a fruity chutney.

Keoghs crisps Since these hit the shelves last year we can hardly keep up with demand.

Hand-cooked at the family potato farm in north Co Dublin these crisps pack a punch of flavour. These guys are potato farmers with personality too – they had shamrock flavoured crisps for Paddy’s day (the shamrock was grown especially for them in Co Kerry) which were a huge hit!

Mileeven honeys This gorgeous range of honeys just keeps getting better and better. For a real treat of an Irish breakfast you can’t beat the Mileeven honey with Jameson poured over a steaming bowl of porridge. They come from Co Kilkenny.

Pandora Bell nougat I don’t know if its the whimsical artwork and pretty colours or the divinely chewy nougat that keep people coming back for more but these nougats are extremely popular for with our customers, and the salted caramels have a cult status.

They are made in Co Limerick.

Sheridans Irish brown bread crackers Why did nobody think of this before? They are the perfect accompaniment to a cheese board, a lovely crunchy texture with all the flavour of soda bread. These absolutely flew off the shelves for us this Christmas. They are handmade in Co Cork. www.fallonandbyrne.com

A supplement to Fine Food Digest

Sally Barnes’ Woodcock Smokery has been smoking fish in West Cork for over 30 years and has picked up numerous Great Taste awards, including a Supreme Champion trophy for its wild smoked salmon in 2006.

The business began as a kitchentable operation. The ‘kiln’ was a tea-chest with a hole in the bottom and there was a small pan of shavings smouldering below the fish, which hung from steel rods above.

The smokery sources only sustainable caught wild fish, then salt and smoke cures it gently until it reaches the right balance of flavours.

“We give the products just salt, smoke, time, and love,” says Sally Barnes. “Our packaging is very simple, and transparent, so customers can see what they are buying.”

A very popular product in the States, fresh cookie dough is only just beginning to make a name for itself in the UK and Sophie Morris and Graham Clarke were among the first to bring it to the speciality food market.

“We decided to pack in our jobs during the midst of the financial chaos in 2009 to pursue the dream of setting up our own food company,” explains Morris. “Armed with a 5-litre domestic mixer, some basic ingredients and a lot of chocolate bars, we set about putting the wheels in motion to create what is now Kooky Dough.”

Since its initial launch in farmers’ markets, Kooky Dough has gone from strength to strength and is now available in major retailers across France, the UK and United Arab Emirate’s. This spring will see the launch of its ready-to-bake muffin and scone dough.

Ferdia Irish Chocolates www.ferdiafinefoods.com

Ferdia Irish Chocolates, formerly known as Danucci Chocolates, takes its name from the famed local warrior, Ferdia, who fought Cu Cuchlainn at the Battle of the Ford, just around the corner from the chocolate factory.

Launched under the Danucci name back in 2004, all the chocolates are handmade in Ardee, Co Louth and use only Valrhona chocolate. Salted caramel is the best-selling flavour.

Ferdia has also introduced a new 32-chocolate box collection.

Burren Smokehouse www.burrensmokehouse.ie

Birgitta and Peter Curtin established the Burren Smokehouse 25 years ago, sourcing 100% Irish salmon, trout, mackerel and eel. And they have stuck to the same buying policy ever since.

The couple smoke the fish in their own purpose-built ovens using a patented smoking method of oak, sea salt and the west coast of Ireland’s Atlantic air. They believe this produces a mild smoked product that brings out the texture and flavour of the fish.

Burren’s products have picked up numerous Great Taste awards over the years and have caught the

eye of high-end food stores such as Fortnum & Mason (Burren’s smoked Irish organic salmon is actually under the F&M label), Dean & Deluca in New York and KaDeWe in Berlin.

Foods of Athenry www.foodsofathenry.ie

Despite a disastrous fire in 2011 that destroyed its entire bakery facility, Foods of Athenry resumed production in May 2012 and can once again offer a wide range of baked goods.

First established in 2004 by the Lawless family on their dairy farm in Galway, the firm began baking wheat and spelt from scratch and has steadily expanded. While all its products are free from artificial colours, flavours, preservatives, GMOs and hydrogenated fats, Foods of Athenry also produces a gluten-free range that includes cookies, granolas and flapjacks.

The firm has picked up a number of Great Taste awards including seven in 2012.

Totally tea Suki Tea www.suki-tea.com

B

elfast’s Suki Tea has won no less than 21 different Great Taste awards for its teas, which range from black and green to white, oolong, fruit and herbal.

The company first began at a small farmers’ market in Belfast in March 2005. Things have grown pretty quickly since then and today Suki Tea is served in eateries around the UK and across the world, and is available to buy online and in many independent stores nationwide.

Now, Suki Tea is set to become the first company to grow tea in Ireland. It has sourced 2,000 tea plants from a leading grower in Tanzania and plans to grow them on land at Portaferry in Co Down, which is said to have a frost-free microclimate.

Food & Drink from Ireland 2013-14

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Traditional Irish Taste...

We select heritage vegetables, grow, steam cook and pack on the family farm.

The taste and texture of homemade cooking- food to feel good about. No artificial additives, colourings or preservatives.

Established in 2000, Rainbow Foods manufactures and supplies a range of frozen, natural onion rings in batter from its state-of the art manufacturing site in Cookstown Co. Tyrone. The company currently supplies the Foodservice sector across Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, including Hotels, Restaurants and Cafes. The natural, frozen onion rings in batter, which are manufactured under the ‘Rainbow’ brand are available in catering packs (4 x 1 kilo bags per box). The company can also supply own label.

We are expanding our business into the retail sector with approximately 400 grams of Frozen natural onion rings and Fresh onion rings for the chilled retail market with a 14 day shelf life.

Fresh. Convenient. Nutritious. Delicious. www.mashdirect.com GB-008

We have also added to our production fully cooked jacket potatoes then Frozen and packed for the food service.

Tel. 02886 736328 Mob. 07936 009233 Email. seamus-rainbowfoods@live.co.uk

There’s nothing quite like the taste of good, wholesome, nutritious food, traditionally home-cooked using the finest ingredients and recipes that have been handed down through the generations.

And at Bramley Lodge that’s exactly what sits behind every meal we make. We take the very best, locally sourced produce and apply our craft as only we can. We add nothing but a dollop of skill and a generous sprinkling of passion.

And we bring you the natural flavours you love, whenever and wherever you want them.

+353 214 882499 | www.bramleylodge.ie 18

Food & Drink from Ireland 2013-14

A supplement to Fine Food Digest

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A supplement to Fine Food Digest

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Food & Drink from Ireland 2013-14

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guide to producers

Our local heroes Mark Caviston Cavistons Food Emporium Dun Laoghaire, Co Dublin Genovese Pesto This pesto is made here in Dublin by Genovese Foods, and quite simply is good enough to eat by the spoonful.

Dave (the owner and maker) grows his own basil here in Dublin and only uses extra virgin olive oil. A magical blend of flavour and texture, this pesto is already available in Selfridges in London and is a very popular seller with us.

Green Saffron spice blends These are amazing products from Cork.

Used by many top chefs, they are also available in a customer-friendly sized pack, each with wonderful freshly roasted spice blends. They make a fantastic meal. When we receive our delivery, the exotic smells of the various blends billow through the shop and immediately generate interest. Once you taste this product the takeaway menu will go in the bin forever!

Highbank Orchard Syrup This is an innovative product made in Co Kilkenny. The syrup is 100% organic apple, with no added sugar.

It works wonderfully well with fruits, on yoghurt and oats – and with my favourite blue cheese.

Kilbeggan organic porridge oats Kilbeggan oats are amazing, organically grown in Co Westmeath and already exported to New York. I start my day every morning with a bowl. They’re creamy and delicious, and adding fresh blueberries and cinnamon takes them to a whole new level. It even gets the children interested.

Mic’s Inferno chilli sauce What struck me initially about this product was the packaging. It’s bold, fun and colourful. Once I stopped admiring the packaging I was pleasantly surprised with the taste. The good thing with Mic’s Chilli sauce is that the sauce has an interesting flavour and not just heat.

It comes in four strengths from “lite” to “extreme”. The company has also gone on to launch a BBQ sauce and a sweet chilli sauce.

Wilkies organic chocolate We have a great new local bean-to-bar chocolate maker, which has just set up in Dun Laoghaire, five minutes up the road from Cavistons. It makes single estate chocolate bars from organic beans, and they’ve really become popular, outselling my expectations.

The Blue Haven Food Company www.bluehavenfoodco.com

The Blue Haven Food Company is known for its Signature seafood range – which includes the award-winning gluten free seafood chowder – as well as fresh soups and jams and chutneys.

All the products are developed by the company’s team of chefs who take pride in each recipe, as well as the quality and uniqueness of the finished product. “Our vision is to become an international food brand, producing top quality niche seafood products for both the domestic and international market,” says Blue Haven’s Cassandra Burke O’Driscoll.

Tom Durcan Meats www.tomdurcanmeats.ie

Based at Cork’s Old English Market since 1985, craft butcher Tom Durcan is renowned for his spiced beef, which he now supplies to retailers and to the city’s top eating establishments.

Made to a recipe handed down to him by the butcher he worked for as a young school boy, the beef has even been enjoyed by the Queen on her royal visit to the city in 2011.

From mixing the special spice blend to marinating the meat, it takes several months to produce Durcan’s Spiced Beef.

Bfree www.BFreefoods.com

Established only 12 months ago, BFree, which describes its products as a “new generation” in healthy breads, has already secured nationwide listings for its baked goods.

The brainchild of Ronan McNamee, original founder of Cuisine de France, the BFree brand came as a result of extensive research into the market for wheat-free and gluten-free bakery products.

BFree is now set to enter the UK market with the launch of the first ever wheat-free, gluten-free, dairyfree, egg-free and high fibre multigrain wrap.

www.cavistons.com

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Food & Drink from Ireland 2013-14

Julie Calder-Potts with her orchard syrup, adding value to Highbank Farm’s organic apples

A concentrated shot of sweetness Highbank Organic Orchards www.highbankorchards.com

I

f the simplest ideas are often the best, Julie and Rod Calder-Potts may have struck gold with their Highbank Farm organic orchard syrup.

The result of some “messing about on the AGA” a couple of years ago, this pouring syrup is made from concentrated organic apple juice and nothing else.

With a two-year ambient shelf life, it has been rapidly adopted by chefs in Ireland for everything from glazing meats to drizzling over blue cheese and desserts.

As well as 2.5 litre catering containers there are 200ml retail pouring bottles and 50ml miniatures,

and Highbank syrup has already found its way to UK outlets including Selfridges and The Cheese Hamlet.

Highbank Farm in Co Kilkenny has been in Rod Calder-Potts’ family for generations. Commercial orchards were planted in the late 1960s but when accession to the EU brought a glut of cosmetically perfect French apples, many of the trees were grubbed up again.

In recent years the couple have been finding new uses for their apples, from ‘proper’ craft cider to a mulling apple juice with added spices.

“We felt there had to be other things that could add value to our apples,” Julie says. But she adds: “We’re small, and staying small. What we make goes to speciality shops and markets; we’re not going to make the leap into Tesco.”

A supplement to Fine Food Digest

guide to producers

Irish ‘übercrisp’ that’s frying off the shelves

Clive Gee, with the original G’s brand (right) and the newer Abbey Farm

Keogh’s Crisps www.keoghs.ie

F Scoring with the foodie set G’s Jams www.gsgourmetjams.ie

T

hree chefs, 40 open pans simmering on gas hobs, and neighbours dropping by regularly with 20lbs of fruit.

That’s the old-fashioned mode of operation that has helped G’s Jams pick up numerous Great Taste awards for its soft-set jams, chutneys, sauces and relishes since the business was launched by Helen Gee in 1999.

Last year saw G’s take a threestar gold and a place in the Top 50 Foods in Britain with its handmade rhubarb & ginger jam – an award that also won it a listing with Fortnum & Mason.

“Because we’re farmers, we built the business on farmers’ markets,” says Helen’s son Clive, “running round in our own vans, so we had to use a courier for Forntums.

“But we’d like to do more in the UK, so now we’re looking for a distributor into farm shops.”

While the family firm never strays too far from its roots, more recently it made part of its range available under the new Abbey Farm label, which Clive Gee describes as “a younger, funkier brand” to target young mums and others in the under-35 age group.

But whatever’s on the label, it will have same product inside. “It’s just about giving the buyer two options,” he says.

or a land closely associated with the humble spud, the dreadful growing season in 2012, cold winter and non-existent spring of 2013 were bad news. Yields were down by a third, and tonnes of potatoes were left in the ground all winter, sitting in ground too waterlogged for harvesting.

Keogh’s, the family-owned potato business in north Co Dublin, has spent years working to insulate itself against such vagaries of nature.

It was one of the first Irish farmers to build coldstores to ensure it could offer year-round potato supplies, and it had added value to its spuds by developing new, convenient formats like its microwaveable Easy Cook packs. (Even in Ireland, it seems, the younger generation has forgotten how to cook potatoes.)

But one new part of the business in particular is grabbing the headlines. The Keogh’s Crisps brand was launched less than two years ago and has seems to have struck a chord with speciality food buyers worldwide.

Since showing the product at last year’s Speciality & Fine Food Fair, the Keogh family has seen orders from Dubai, Bahrain and even China.

Dean & Deluca, the iconic New York food hall chain, has stocked Keogh’s Crisps for more than a year, and Selfridges in London is buying the products via Irish distributor Sheridans.

Interest has been sparked by flavours such as shamrock & sour cream, using a flavour extracted from real shamrock grown in Co Kerry, and roast beef & Irish stout, flavoured with freeze-dried Dungarvon stout from an Irish craft brewer.

“The market for premium chips in the UK has matured,” says Tom Keogh, who rented a former potato store from his father to set up the Keogh’s Crisps operation as a standalone business that, to begin with, was little more than a hobby.

“The likes of Tyrrells and Burts have been around for 10-12 years and are nearly mainstream now.

“My feeling is that there’s a market for an ‘über-crisp’. If we can go in over the top of those others, that’s where we want to be.”

Tom Keogh: aiming over the heads of the ‘nearly mainstream’ Tyrrells and Burts

Mileeven Fine Foods www.mileeven.com

JOD Food Products www.oldirishcreamery.com

Mileeven Fine Foods was established in 1988 by Eilis Gough, who decided to make a business from her beekeeping hobby. Now run by Eilis and her daughter Sarah (below), Mileeven has just launched the Sarah’s Honey range into the UK market.

Available in Selfridges and independent stores nationwide, the range includes honey with ginger, lemon, blueberries and more.

Mileeven also offers pure honeys, as well as preserves, cakes and Christmas products.

A family business, JOD Food Products manufactures a range of cheddar cheeses with or without additives, including oak-smoked, garlic & herbs, chilli, cranberries, blueberries, walnuts, Irish porter, Irish whiskey, red wine, chocolate, seaweed, chives and many more.

The company’s Old Irish Creamery range has won 60 national and international awards to date since it began manufacturing in 2008, including medals at the World Cheese Awards and Nantwich International Cheese Awards.

All the products are made using 100% Irish cheddar and 100% natural ingredients.

A supplement to Fine Food Digest

Food & Drink from Ireland 2013-14

21

Bringing a contemporary twist to traditional recipes, The Scullery creates a delectable range of handmade Christmas Puddings, Relishes and Pickles. These sumptuous foods are gluten, preservative and additive free – what you see is what you get! While keenly priced there is no compromise on quality, just a wonderful homemade taste.

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Food & Drink from Ireland 2013-14

A supplement to Fine Food Digest

guide to producers

Our local heroes New ideas from trout Karen Liston Listons Food Store

farming pioneers

Dublin

Goatsbridge Trout Farm

Drumeel Farm muesli This is just incredible muesli. There is no added sugar and it is packed with toasted wheat, oats and seeds and fruit and nuts. The company is a oneman show; he mostly sells at markets.

www.goatsbridgetrout.ie

Filligans chutneys The onion chutney has a really nice strong flavour, and it’s very dark, unlike most others these days. They also do a nice mango chutney and cucumber relish.

Green Saffron spice mixes This brand was started by an English fellow who has married and settled in West Cork. He sources the spices through his relatives in India. There are plenty of spice blends on the market, but his are just better than anyone else’s.

Keogh’s crisps These are the latest phenomenon here – they are just flying off the shelves. We only got them in recently and they are knocking the socks off everything else.

Niks Tea It’s a new company selling loose tea.

Nicola Kearns’ blends are fabulous.

She uses a lovely combination of fresh ingredients, such as lemon, pepper, rosemary and cardamom, all nicely packaged. Her Sleep Well tea will really make you go to sleep. www.listonsfoodstore.ie

T

Our local heroes

he Kirwan family were pioneers of aquaculture in Ireland when they started producing trout at their Kilkenny farm in 1962.

But it could be a range extension developed 50 years later that takes their Goatsbridge Farm label into UK delis, farm shops and food halls.

Owners Ger and Mags Kirwan produced the first jars of Ireland’s only trout caviar in March 2012 and according to Ger got “a tremendous reaction” from chefs – and a PR boost when Irish president Michael Higgins asked for it to be added to the menu at one of his official functions.

But serious production only started in early 2013, and now the couple hope they will soon be selling a tonne a year of the vivid orange salted eggs, which are marketed in 85g jars. “You only need to use a little, so a tonne is a lot of caviar,” says Ger. The product, which in March 2013 won the food category of the Irish Times Innovation Awards, symbolises how Goatsbridge Farm has developed since 1962. “My father’s business was totally focused on harvesting and selling fresh fish,” Ger continues, “but it got to the stage where we were selling lots of fish but not making any money.

“To survive, you have got be innovative, so we are focused on adding value.”

They began with cutting and packing fixed-weight trout fillets and fish-with-sauce packs, then started working with a nearby smokehouse to develop cold- and hot-smoked options. “The hot smoked product won’t go into multiples,” say Ger. And what’s next for the fish farming innovators? Mags Kirwan tells FFD: “We’re looking very seriously at a very high-class, Irish branded canned trout.”

Ger Kirwan: ‘To survive, you have got to be innovative’

Kieran Sloan Sawers Deli Belfast Cottage Pride homemade preserves Margaret Brownlee makes small batches of her products in saucepans the old fashioned way in Co Armagh, supplying delis. The jams are all made fresh, including damson plum, rhubarb & clove, gooseberry, strawberry, and Seville orange.

Ditty’s oatcakes These fly off our shelves as accompaniments to cheese from our 30-40ft chilled counter. We pre-order them every week, and the oatcakes with celery & black pepper are particularly popular.

Erin Grove Preserves Erin Grove, from Enniskillen, do a fantastic range of chutneys including chilli jam to serve with cheese and cold cuts. They are a best seller.

Kearney Blue cheese We sell nearly 200 cheeses, including 30 types of Irish cheese. This is one of the nicest blues you could find, produced in very small quantities.

Suki Tea This the big trendy tea over here at the moment. It’s sold loose and we sell the full range of 40 to 50 products including Belfast Brew. It is quite expensive but one of our best sellers. www.sawersbelfast.com

Crossogue Preserves www.crossoguepreserves.com

Founded in 1995 by Veronica Molloy and still based at the family home in Ballycahill, Co Tipperary, Crossogue Preserves is a small, family-run company producing over 85 varieties of preserves. It boasts more than 30 Great Taste awards and was recently successful in the Dalemain World Marmalade Awards too.

Crossogue Preserves made its UK debut last year with nine preserves and a new label design to suit the export market. Its Irish coffee curd is just one of the products in a range which is also selling in Germany, France and the USA. The preserves are made using traditional cooking methods and are handmade in small batches without artificial flavouring, colouring or preservatives.

A supplement to Fine Food Digest

Ballymaloe www.ballymaloefoods.ie

Ballymaloe relish is a favourite recipe of Ballymaloe House, a renowned country house and cookery school in East Cork, which was opened by Myrtle Allen in 1964. Now, Yasmin Hyde, Myrtle’s daughter, produces a selection of relishes, dressings and sauces, which are sold in shops and served in restaurants throughout Ireland.

Food & Drink from Ireland 2013-14

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guide to producers

Irish Atlantic Sea Salt www.irishatlanticsalt.ie

On the Beara Peninsula, the O’Neill family are hand-crafting gourmet sea salt flakes using the Grade A sea water that surrounds their home.

The seawater is gently evaporated and heated, then the salt crystals are hand-harvested and dried. The end product is 100% natural pure sea salt flakes that can be easily crumbled by hand.

Aside from its pure sea salt flakes, Irish Atlantic also infuses its salt with various flavours including Irish dilisk (a type of seaweed), chilli & paprika, lemon, and black pepper and garlic. It also produces a smoked salt.

The firm is currently looking for UK stockists.

Bombay Pantry www.bombaypantry.com

Bombay Pantry, has been spicing up the lives of hungry customers since 1997 with its gourmet ‘food to go’, cooked from scratch daily by classically trained Indian chefs. Each dish is made using only freshly ground spices and premium quality meat and vegetables.

All the products are 100% natural and gluten free – even the yoghurt for the marinades is made in-house.

It has recently undergone a rebrand and launched a range of freshly-chilled meals and sauces, including Chicken Korma, Chicken Tikka Masala, Butter Masala, and a signature Bombay Chicken Curry.

The brand is currently stocked in Ireland by a wide range of multiples and independents.

A blend of cultures and flavours Green Saffron www.greensaffron.com

W

ith a Brahmin Hindu father, a Yorkshire mother and an adopted home in Co Cork, Ireland’s artisan food heartland, it’s perhaps no surprise Arun Kapil has gravitated to selling a Westernised version of Indian cuisine into the speciality food market.

The public school-educated Kapil was a child actor and rock singer who started his own Londonbased record label at the age of 19. But it was when he quit music and retrained as a chef at Ireland’s Ballymaloe Cookery School that the seeds of Green Saffron were sown.

With help from relatives in India, he began importing quality, fresh spices in bulk to Ireland and creating his own spice mixes, selling at farmers’ markets. As volumes grew, he was able to start buying direct from farmers, minimising the time

24

between harvesting and shipping to ensure spices were shipped with the highest possible level of volatile oils. “That’s our main point of difference,” he tells FFD. “I’m buying just-in-time, rather than just for profit, which means the spices are processed within six to eight weeks. Our USP is ‘fresh, simple and authentic’.”

In the small Irish retail market, supermarkets have proved an important outlet to grow the wellpackaged Green Saffron spices and blends range, helped by Kapil’s growing status as a celebrity chef.

But he says his plan in the UK is to target speciality shops, farm shops and butchers’ counters, rather than multiples, and then to do the same across France, Germany and Benelux.

“Farmers’ markets are brilliant and we’ll always do them, because you get such great feedback,” he says, “but speciality shops are the next tier up for me.”

Food & Drink from Ireland 2013-14

Shunning the mass market Hannan Meats www.hannanmeats.com

N

ot many people receive unsolicited visits from top level supermarket buyers, but Peter Hannan has – in case you were in any doubt about how in-demand his products are.

He was happy to invite them in, feed and water them; then politely turn them away.

“That’s not our route,” he says.

“Lots of other people approach us but it’s our decision not to go into mass production.”

Since winning the 2012 Great Taste Supreme Champion title with its guanciale (an Italian-style pig cheek bacon), Hannan Meats has racked up a number of high profile customers.

The guanciale is in Fortnum & Mason and the London retailer’s butchery counter is now stocking Hannan’s latest innovation: beef matured in a purpose-built Himalayan salt chamber. The saltaged beef is also supplied exclusively in the UK to Mark Hix and it is also being dispatched to Michelin-starred restaurants in Paris, Milan and Barcelona.

Personal success aside, Peter Hannan sees the level of interest in his products as part of a countrywide phenomenon.

“There is a food revolution taking place in Northern Ireland,” he says.

“It was bubbling under the surface but nothing has thrown a greater spotlight on Northern Ireland than the last two years of Great Taste.”

While meat has had a good run – like the 2011 Supreme Champion corned beef from neighbouring producer McCartney’s of Moira – Hannan expects Northern Irish producers in other categories to make an impact on the awards in 2013-14.

In the meantime, he is using his extra exposure as a chance to promote other local producers, including Abernethy Butter and smoked salmon from Belfast fishmonger Ewing’s, to his customers.

Given the volumes he is sending to the rest of the UK, Hannan is also trying to help out on the distribution side.

“If we’re going over with a pallet of beef it’s very easy for them to piggyback on that.”

He adds: “Logistics is a little bit of a problem for Northern Ireland.

We’re slightly disadvantaged that there’s a strip of water between us and our major market.”

There is a need, he says, for a food hub to get smaller producers’ wares to market. While this is being discussed “at all the relevant levels”, he’s happy to help in the interim.

“The big people can take care of themselves but we have an obligation to co-operate with small artisan producers.”

A supplement to Fine Food Digest

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www.duncannonsmokehouse.ie A supplement to Fine Food Digest

email: annspantry@sky.com tel: 028 28260474 Food & Drink from Ireland 2013-14

25

handmade pastry products from

Kitchen Bakes is a family owned business with an ethos of making and supplying pastry products with that home baked appeal and attention to detail which you can only achieve with a handmade finish. Their range includes a variety of fruit tarts, sausage rolls, cakes and pastries that taste delicious and are pleasing to the eye.

137 Hillsborough Old Rd, Lisburn BT27 5QR T : 028 9266 8844 F : 028 9262 9650 E : info@finefooddistributors.com

Contact Kitchen Bakes at: info@kitchenbakes.com or Tel: 0044 2838350262 facebook: /KitchenBakes

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Food & Drink from Ireland 2013-14

A supplement to Fine Food Digest

guide to producers

Lorge Chocolatiers www.lorge.ie

Cooleeney www.cooleeney.com

The light fantastic Broighter Gold www.broightergold.com

B

ased in Myroe on the outskirts of Limavady, Broighter Gold is run by husband and wife farming team Richard and Leona Kane, who grow, harvest and produce rapeseed oil on their 700-acre farm.

“Five years ago I ran out of olive oil in the kitchen while I was making the tea and Richard brought me in some of the rapeseed oil that he was pressing at the time for bio-diesel,” says Leona Kane. “I absolutely loved the smell of

the rapeseed oil cooking in the pan, the way it didn’t burn and the milder flavour.”

She continues: “Our oil has been described as delicate, full of flavour but not strong, heavy and nutty like some rapeseed oils.”

Customers already include all the six-strong Hastings hotel collection and celebrity chef Paul Rankin’s Belfast restaurant, Cayenne. It is also sold in delis, farm shops and independent stores in Northern Ireland, and is now ready to travel further afield.

Breda and Jim Maher, together with their son Pat and a team of cheesemakers, produce a range of cows’ and goats’ milk cheeses on their Tipperary farm.

All the milk used in Cooleeney Farm cows’ milk cheese comes from the Mahers’ herd of pedigree Friesians, while the milk for its goats’ cheese is sourced from a neighbouring farmer.

Cooleeney Farm produces a range of soft and hard cheeses, including its signature Cooleeney (a soft, bloomy rind cheese with hints of mushroom and oak) and Gortnamona (a delicate soft goats’ cheese).

It also makes Tipperary Brie, Dunbarra Brie and Daru and Gleann Oir semi-hard cheeses.

Cooleeney Farm cheeses are stocked in a range of speciality shops across the UK, including Paxton & Whitfield and La Cave a Fromage in London.

www.flahavans.co.uk

A supplement to Fine Food Digest

Pollock’s Pickles www.pollockspickles.com

Run by Glennys and Meredith Pollock, Pollock’s Pickles believes in using wholesome, quality ingredients, old family recipes handed down through the generations and modern ideas to produce pickles and preserves.

“All our products are made entirely by hand in small batches to retain the full freshness and flavour, using standard kitchen equipment you would use in your own home,” explains Glennys Pollock. “For a truly homemade taste we never use artificial colours, flavours or preservatives.”

Pollock’s Pickles has won numerous awards locally and regionally, as well as Great Taste awards.

Armagh Cider Company www.armaghcider.com

The Troughton family has been growing apples since 1898, but it was only in 2006 that its first cider was produced.

It currently offers two styles: Carsons Crisp Armagh cider and Maddens Mellow Armagh cider. They are all made using freshlypressed apples and no artificial flavours, colours or ingredients. At present both ciders are available in Ireland and the firm is looking for UK distributors.

Ummera Quality Irish Smokehouse www.ummera.com

Flahavan’s Established in 1785, Flahavan’s is one of the oldest family businesses in Ireland. It uses Irish oats and milling techniques handed down over six generations to create its porridge.

The range currently consists of organic porridge oats and organic jumbo oats, a microwaveable quick oats drum and original Irish porridge oats in 1.5kg, 1kg and 500g bags.

Chef Benoit Lorge creates high quality chocolates for gourmet shops and high class hotels and restaurants.

Lorge Chocolatiers aims to follow the traditions of the true French artisan, making handmade chocolates that use only top quality ingredients sourced from all over the world, and supplies chocolates mail order to customers throughout Europe and the United States.

Clonakilty www.clonakiltyblackpudding.ie

Clonakilty black pudding has its origins in a small farmhouse in rural West Cork. From the 1880s, this black pudding was made to a secret recipe in a butcher shop at 16 Pearse St, Clonakilty.

Since then, the recipe has been handed down through the generations and the now famous Clonakilty black pudding is still being manufactured by the Twomey family today – albeit on a rather larger scale.

Other products in the range include white pudding, sausages and bacon.

Ummera has been smoking fish for nearly 40 years.

“We originally concentrated on smoking the wild Atlantic salmon caught by fishermen as the salmon returned from their feeding grounds in the North Atlantic,” explains owner Anthony Cresswell.

“Since 2006, when it was obvious that over-fishing was having significant effects on wild salmon stocks, we’ve has been smoking Irish organically reared salmon.”

Ummera gently smokes fish over smouldering oak fires using its own cure.

Alongside its organic smoked salmon it offers organic gravadlax, smoked eel, smoked chicken, smoked duck and smoked dry cured bacon, and its products are sold worldwide.

Food & Drink from Ireland 2013-14

27

Solaris Tea Award-winning, Organic, Speciality Teas

by Master Tea Blender Jörg Müller www.pollockspickles.com info@pollockspickles.com Cornamundy Monaghan Co. Monaghan Ireland Tel +353 4781117 Mob +353 86 6670174 * 100% Whole Leaf Tea * Biodegradable Pyramid Bags * No added aromas * Exciting blend combinations * 1st flush Green Teas

Solaris Botanicals Ltd Tel: +353 91 750020 / Mobile (UK): 079 03262720 Email - info@solarisbotanicals.com www.solaristea.com

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Food & Drink from Ireland 2013-14

A supplement to Fine Food Digest Green Saffron Ad 100 x 141.5mm.indd 1

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CAMPBELL’S Perfect TEA

Family based business manufacturing range of cheddar cheeese with/without adddittives such as Oak Smoked, Garlic & Herbs, Chilli, Cranberries, Blueberries, Walnuts, Irish Porter, Irish Whiskey, Red Wine, Chocolate, Seaweed, Chives and many more. Old Irish Creamery range have won 60 national/international awards to date since began manufacture in 2008, from Gold, Silver and Bronze awards at World Cheeese awards and Nantwich International Cheese Awards from which won 16 awards this year. Winner of Gold, Silver and Bronze in 2011 World Cheese Awards. All products made from 100% Irish Cheddar and 100% natural ingredients.

Beautiful Flavour Delicious Rich Cup

Campbell’s Tea, which has been made in Dublin since 1797 is a robust loose leaf cup, blended from the finest East African teas. With its iconic yellow tin, Campbell’s is a real ‘foodie’ favourite, winning gold stars at Great Taste in each of the last four years info@robert-roberts.ie

If you’re looking for something different, you’ve found it!                                                                                       

  A supplement to Fine Food Digest

Food & Drink from Ireland 2013-14

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guide to producers

Tully B’s

Falconer use a plethora of plants (hips, haws, sloes, elderflower, elderberry, guilder rose, aronia, bullace, nettles, wild garlic, honeysuckle and meadowsweet to name a few) in their handmade products and they grow a great deal of it in their own permaculture gardens. harvested and dried naturally before being packaged for sale.

The range has grown to 15 lines and is now stocked in more than 200 health food shops and supermarkets in Ireland as well as through the Atlantic Kitchen Company in London.

Red Dog Foods www.reddogfoods.co.uk

Established in June 2010 by BarbaraAnn Cousins and Paul Van Gelder, Red Dog Foods produces a range of BBQ and marinade sauces, chilli jellies and herb-infused sea salts.

All handmade in Kilkeel, the product range features five sauces, four jellies and five sea salts including its Buffalo Wing sauce, Nuclear Xtra Hot Sauce and Sour Cherry Chilli Jelly.

“Our latest introductions are our Dragon’s Breath chilli jelly, which is a fresh ginger and star anise jelly, and our Buffalo Wing Sauce,” says Paul Van Gelder. He has also created a range of dry rubs for BBQs, smoking and roasting.

The range, also available in catering packs, is already stocked in around 30 stores in Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic, most of which are butchers, delis and food halls.

The Wild About range includes chutneys, relishes and preserves (all in cases of 12x200g jars) and fresh pestos (12 units per box), as well as dressings, dessert syrups and cocktail mixers (cases of 20x250ml bottles).

Every product has a wholesale unit price of £3.50. And you won’t find any of it in the multiples.

“We are not supermarket material,” says Fiona Falconer.

“We can’t compete on price or compromise quality or our seasonality to ‘pile ‘em high and sell ‘em cheap’.

We’re more Mr Selfridge than Mr Woolworth.”

Wild About

Wild Irish Sea Veg

www.wildabout.ie

This start-up has been making a wide range of products on a smallholding in Wexford for the last 18 months.

Now Wild About, which uses locally sourced, seasonally grown and wild ingredients native to Ireland, is looking to sell to UK independents.

Founders Malcolm and Fiona

www.tullybs.ie An Argentinian-style Chimichurri sauce is the signature product of Tully B’s, a Dublin-based artisan brand launched by David Kirby and his family in 2011.

Chimichurri is a marinade and dipping sauce that can be used as an everyday accompaniment with beef, chicken and fish, on salads and pasta or as a simple addition to bread.

“We produce our own version of Chimichurri, so it’s unique to Tully B’s,” says Kirby, “and we have three versions: mild, medium and hot.”

The sauce is a blend of parsley, garlic, oregano and chillies plus other herbs and spices, mixed with extra

Carr & Sons www.carrandsons.ie

Irish family firm Carr & Sons is launching its chilled fish range to the UK market in summer 2013.

A fourth-generation business based in Killala, Co Mayo, with a collection of Great Taste awards, the artisan range features a wild Irish, organic Irish and whiskey smoked salmon, as well as langoustine cocktail, mussels and lobsters.

The products are aimed at the “taste rich, time poor” consumer, with portion packs, microwaveable packaging and ready-to-eat lobster.

RRPs start at £4.

www.wildirishseaveg.com

Wild Irish Sea Veg, established in 2009 by Gerard and Eileen Talty, sells a range of seaweeds from the Atlantic coast.

All the seaweed used in its products, from sugar kelp to sea spaghetti, is 100% natural, organic, wild and sustainable. It is hand-

virgin olive oil and Irish rapeseed oil.

Trade price in Ireland is €27.30- €29.50 for a case of 12 x 250ml bottles.

New this year from Tully B’s is a harissa sauce (Trade €23.40 for 12 x 250ml) to accompany seafood, meat or vegetables, and again supplied in three levels of heat.

“Harissa is a North African condiment made from red peppers, chilli, coriander, cumin, paprika, lemon juice and olive oil,” says Kirby. “It’s usually a paste but we have created a sauce version which we believe will be extremely versatile and easy to use for the consumer.”

A steep churning curve Abernethy Butter Co www.abernethybuttercompany.com

N

‘We’re not interested in supermarkets like Tesco or Sainsbury’s’

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Food & Drink from Ireland 2013-14

ot many producers can boast an order from one of the nation’s best restaurants then follow it up with a listing at one of world’s most famous food retailers.

But the last few months have seen Abernethy’s handmade butter, a two-star Great Taste winner in 2012, make a big impression on the UK food scene.

The Fat Duck’s Heston Blumenthal was the first to come calling, but Fortnum & Mason soon followed suit, and the resulting media coverage has seen chef Marcus Wareing order the butter for his restaurant at The Berkeley in London’s Knightsbridge.

Allison Abernethy, who runs the business with husband William on a farm in the Co Down’s Dromara hills, says a few more high profile endorsements are in the pipeline.

This success has prompted the pair to pursue more business with chefs and independent stores across the UK. “It’s something that we plan to work on in the next few months. Over here, we supply delis, butchers and farm shops.

We’re not interested in supermarkets like Tesco or Sainsbury’s.”

The Abernethys have been producing the butter since 2005 but the method they use is much older, having been handed down by Allison’s family. Their cream is sourced from a local farmer whose cows graze in the Lagan valley.

Currently they make just 300 of their hand-wrapped 125g rolls each day. Each has a 12-week shelf life and a trade price of £1.30 (minimum order 24 units).

“It’s just cream and a bit of salt,” says Abernethy, and it looks like they will keep it that way, aside from the brandy butter they make for Christmas and the fudge they sell locally.

A supplement to Fine Food Digest

It’s no secret why our cheeses are so good. Nestled in the heart of Tipperary’s prime dairy country, we’re blessed with peaty soil, a perfect climate and clover rich grass; so it’s no wonder our pedigree friesian herd only produces the best milk for our fine cheeses.

But don’t take our word for it. You only have to try our cheese to realise two things: mother nature was definitely a cheese lover and you’ll never find another range of cheeses quite like those at Cooleeney Farm.

LOOKING FOR SOMETHING NEW AND EXCITING? WHY NOT TRY OUR AWARD WINNING RANGE OF INDIAN FOOD? 100% NATURAL, GLUTEN FREE PRODUCTS, HANDMADE IN IRELAND BY OUR TEAM OF INDIAN CHEFS www.bombaypantry.com emma@bombaypantry.com +35312557465

A supplement to Fine Food Digest

Food & Drink from Ireland 2013-14

31

A supplement to Fine Food Digest

Food & Drink from Ireland 2013-14

31