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Written by Hannah Bolger

Parent Category: Cottage Industry

Category: Artisan Ireland

Created: 27 July 2012

Last Updated: 09 June 2016

User Rating: 0 / 5

                       by Hannah Bolger

People are keen to connect with where their food is coming from

Situated in Wicklow, the Garden of Ireland, in one of the most idyllic places you can imagine, Waterfall Farm has been in the Keegan family for many, many generations. The Keegan’s have always been connected to the land; farming is the blood that runs through their veins. Ever since Michael Keegan, the current Waterfall Farm owner was a little boy, being a farmer was all he wanted. Just like his father, his grandfather, his great-grandfather and all the other generations of Keegan’s that have farmed this beautiful mountainous farm at the foot of the breath-taking Glencree Valley. He shares that desire with his wife Hannah and together this young couple with their newborn daughter Eleanor work the family farm.

The old traditional farmhouse on Waterfall Farm has reputably been there for around three-hundred years. Although additions have been made since the original build, it still has its thick walls and short doors from years ago! It’s this traditional look combined with the spectacular beauty that has lent the farm to so many television commercials and films. The most famous film shot on the farm in recent times is “P.S I Love You” starring actress Hilary Swank. The farmyard, although having developed and progressed in many respects, is dotted with traditional sheds and outhouses. It is in one of these sheds that Michael has the old Deutz D15 tractor which was the prize that his grandfather Charlie Keegan received when he won in the World Ploughing Championships of 1964 in Austria. Not only was Charlie the first ever Irish man to win a World Championship, he was the first ever Irish man to bring a World title home. A huge achievement and it was thirty years before another Irish man, Martin Kehoe, repeated the feat. It is this sense of history combined with stunning scenic countryside that welcomes you when you walk through the gates of Waterfall Farm.

Standing at the crossroads where the farm is located you can look out over the lush green fields, manicured hedges and fences maintained to perfection by Michael. These mountainous pastures overlooking Powerscourt waterfall are perfect grazing grounds for Michael’s pedigree Lleyn sheep. Several years ago Michael discovered the Lleyn breed of sheep and having done considerable research on them he now farms a flock of 350 ewes. “The Lleyns are good mothers, they are easy kept and hardy which is all very important in the tough economic times we find ourselves in,” said Michael. “They have a superior quality meat and taste which is much sought after.

The Keegan’s sell their lamb directly to the consumer and take orders for whole and half lamb through Waterfall Farm Shop. The lamb is raised on grass and clover, processed in a local abattoir and bagged, labelled and presented in a cardboard box ready for the freezer. They find that selling the lamb directly to consumer has benefits both for them and the buyer. Michael makes the point; “People want to know where their food is coming from and are keen to support local food producers. They visit the farm where their lamb was reared and meet directly with the farmer. That is important, for them and for us”.

Seeing a desire in the market for good quality locally produced food Hannah and Michael decided to open a farm shop.  With traceability and sustainability being so relevant to the consumer they felt it was an ideal venture for the farm. Not only that, but many people want to visit the countryside and understand where their food is coming from. So in addition to the shop they also decided to open the farm up to the public giving people an opportunity to bring their families and experience a working farm in action.

County Wicklow is full of artisan food producers, many of whose products are on the shop’s shelves as well as produce coming directly from local and Irish farmers. When buying your produce from a farm you can expect to get the freshest of products, like the fresh eggs, bread and garden vegetables that the Waterfall Farm Shop stocks. Much of the produce is sourced locally such as home-grown peaches and local raspberries and a strong emphasis on quality with products such as Kilbeggan Porridge, Janet’s Country Fayre and Wicklow Farmhouse Cheeses. As Hannah explains; “Both of us are committed to quality, sustainability and seasonality, as are the producers and farmers we work with. We know where every product comes from and the story behind it, and I am happy to share that story”.

Beside the shop you will find cute little Pygmy kid goats and colourful hens and, depending on the time of year, some mares and foals. Michael’s flock of pedigree Lleyn ewes have their lambs in the spring. All of these animals are available to visit free of charge as Michael and Hannah want to encourage people to come and experience farming life. The children especially are delighted when they visit the goats and baby lambs, something which can be a rarity for a city or town dwelling child. With its close proximity to Dublin, a 30 minute drive, and only a stone’s throw from Enniskerry village Waterfall Farm is readily accessible to those wishing to experience the country way of life on a working farm.  Michael and Hannah also run many different farming and country craft courses more details of which can be found on their website www.waterfallfarm.ie/

The demand for the Waterfall Farm concept of learning about rural life and experiencing farming is certainly there. Food buying is becoming more and more personalised. Buying dinner directly from the farm holds an appeal that is growing and increasingly people are keen to connect with where their food is coming from. The appetite for sourcing your food direct also encourages people to reconnect with Irish rural life. In both these aspects, the Waterfall Farm, with the young Keegan family at the helm, is well placed going into the future.

Waterfall Farm Shop is open at the weekends from 10am to 5pm and more information can be found on their website and Farm Blog at www.waterfallfarm.ie/

Contact details;

Michael and Hannah Keegan

Waterfall Farm and Waterfall Farm Shop,

Enniskerry,

Co. Wicklow,

Ireland

This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

www.waterfallfarm.ie/

Hannah (+353) 87 264 9537

Michael (+353) 86 384 1046

Twitter @waterfallfarm

Facebook; www.facebook.com/waterfallfarm

Youtube; www.youtube.com/waterfallfarm

Audioboo; http://audioboo.fm/waterfallfarm

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Written by Audrea Hassett

Parent Category: Cottage Industry

Category: Artisan Ireland

Created: 20 July 2012

Last Updated: 05 January 2016

User Rating: 0 / 5

Artisan producers of a delightful range of handmade chutneys, preserves, and dressings.

We can all dream – of what we would like to be, or do, or where we would like to live. For many of us these are just fantasies, enjoyable at the same, but often out of our reach. However, if you had the same dream for years and the opportunity of making it become a reality came along, would you have the courage to reach out and grab it? Here is someone who did, and her dream just gets better and better.

Bridgestone Award Audrea Hassett had always dreamt of being a chef and has been passionate about food since she can remember, but she married young and found herself at home, a busy wife and mother. Audrea didn't give up this dream though and eventually decided to do something about it by enrolling on a professional cookery course at a catering college.

This isn’t a lady that lets grass grow under her feet and when she met professional chef Norbert Thul who shared the same enthusiasm for home-grown and natural ingredients, it was obvious this was the perfect match to create culinary delights.

Tastefully Yours was born out of yet another passionate conversation they had about food and the pleasure of turning local raw ingredients into something special. The idea of designing good quality, delicious and somewhat different chutneys has been with Audrea and Norbert for a long time. They feel that there is nothing quite as dynamic and intriguing as the world of food and that now is the perfect time to instil some of their infectious passion and their love of food in visitors at the local farmers market and the wider public.

Sweet Chilli Sauce Two years later, Norbert and Audrea are highly respected new wave producers of Irish Gourmet Chutneys, Relishes and Pickles. Their lovely business has been receiving acclaim at the highest levels since it was established in 2009. These two are working colleagues and best friends, and that good energy comes across in everything they do and make. The pair, who met when Norbert was lecturing in the catering college where Audrea studied professional cookery, had both always fancied a shot at their own business. Audrea’s love of recipe development stemmed from her own passion for food, and this was added to Norbert’s inspirational teaching and his years of experience as a working chef. Today they are a force to be contended with in the artisan production industry of Ireland.

All Tastefully Yours products are created in the small kitchen beside the cute shop where products can be purchased. The divine smell of a pot of chutney being made will entice you in the door! Audrea and Norbert both share a serious passion for getting it absolutely right, and experiment with flavours and tastes for ages before hitting on the right recipe. All items are made in small batches – as Audrea says, some things work made in larger amounts and others don’t. So no compromise here on taste and quality for the sake of being able to make more jars at any one time.

Some chutney’s are produced in only three or five jar batches and the maximum is 25 jars at a time. That’s small, by anybody’s standards! But as a result, the chutneys and preserves are all perfectly balanced in flavour and texture. Recipes used here are invented, tested and worked on till the pair is sure they have the right blend. Some recipes are handed down from family; others are simply new creations dreamed up with inspiration from what is in season.

Audrea and Norbert Bread and Butter Pickle is a grown-up sandwich filler – on buttered bread as the name suggests or to garnish a burger. You can use this to pep up a potato salad, where the savouriness adds something to the mayo base. Cheeseboard Chutney is a combo of figs, apricots, and caramelised onions and matches the wonderful cheeses of Ireland. If you like spice, the Apple and Chilli has a serious kick to it – a good accompaniment to mild curries and we love it on ham sandwiches too. Carrot Chutney is bright orange, with a shreddy texture. Audrea suggest a lovely potato cake recipe with this as an ingredient, to make the finished cakes spicy and crunchy. And the big favourite at Tastefully Yours is the Sweet Chilli Sauce, a South-East Asian inspired, glowing amber sauce flecked with chilli pieces. Use this to accompany any Thai dish, or for dipping spring rolls, deep-fried crispy battered vegetables or prawns, chicken satay sticks and even a bowl of home made chips. We think it’s irreplaceable in the kitchen cupboard!

Vegetables are sourced with consideration and always local. Some come from small holders who may only have a certain amount of one sort of vegetable, and this will be turned into seasonal special chutney by Audrea and Norbert. Each chutney made here is a celebration of the ingredients it includes. At the shop, painted wood shelving and a big timber dresser displays all products in their uniquely designed packaging.

Tastefully Yours is a very well recognised brand nationally and has won many national and regional awards. These awards include the Megabytes Newcomer of the Year award in 2010, the Best in Ireland Bridgestone Award for 2011, the Women in Business for Food Excellence Award in 2011, the Good Food Ireland Newcomer of the Year Award for 2011 and the Best in Ireland Bridgestone Award for 2012. And only earlier this month, Audrea was presented with an award for “Outstanding Food Business” by the local Enterprise Board.

Countryside Norbert and Audrea are artisan food producers in the true sense of the word. When asked to define the term ’Artisan,’ Audrea quotes the author of the Bridgestone Guide, John McKenna, and explains that artisan food encompasses a person, a place, a product and a passion. A kind of personal integrity, pride without arrogance, humility and steadfastness, the belief that their work is not a means to something else, but one of the ways to give meaning to their lives, the brilliance that comes to those driven by their personal vision rather than a desire for success, money or fame and generosity are all very evident here. There are no secrets at Tastefully Yours. If you appreciate what they do, they'll tell you everything they know... and usually set a place for you at their table.

The future looks bright for Tastefully Yours and the revived interest in the artisanal, the organic and the local and naturally harvested food encourages Audrea and Norbert to continue to produce fantastic gourmet chutneys, relishes and pickles in the beautiful village of Dunhill in Co. Waterford, Ireland.

Tastefully Yours

8/9 Dunhill Ecopark

Dunhill

Co. Waterford

Ireland

Tel: 0053 51 396590

This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

https://www.facebook.com/Tastefully

Twitter: @Artisanchutney

Copyright © 2012, DPNLIVE – All Rights Reserved

Dunhill  |  Waterford  |  Ireland

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Written by Sarah Gough

Parent Category: Cottage Industry

Category: Artisan Ireland

Created: 09 July 2012

Last Updated: 05 January 2016

User Rating: 0 / 5

Mileeven Fine Foods was established in 1988 by my mum, Eilis Gough from her hobby of beekeeping. Like a lot of beekeepers, Eilis and Joe started with only a few hives in their garden.  It was a mixture of moving to the countryside where they had more space and with the acquisition of hives from a friend, their first few hives turned into many more.

Sarah Gough - Sarahs Honey

With two good years of sunshine in 1986 and 1987, the decision was made to sell the honey produced in the hives by the bees to the public.  The company name comes from the Irish word “Mil” which means honey, and “Aoibhinn” being delightful.

Our first “retail outlet” was actually selling our product out of the boot of the car at the Parade in Kilkenny City.  It has grown from there.  Mileeven is still a family business, based in the rolling hills of Co. Kilkenny and is still run by mother and daughter duo, Eilis and Sarah Gough.

Mileeven’s Pure Irish Honey is delightful in its nature; its taste, colour, quality and clarity are second to none!  Mileeven’s Irish honey generally comes from the South Kilkenny/South Tipperary area where there is a lovely mixture of flowers available for the bees to feed on.  All the Irish honey is pure and not blended with any other honey. This assures that the true flavour and goodness will always comes through.  From a bee’s point of view, Ireland is lucky in that there isn’t the same intensive farming as is in other countries. The bees are able to flutter from hedgerow to garden, gathering apple blossom, fuscia, bramble flower and many more, which all contribute to such a lovely honey.

Mileeven has grown over the years to include other honeys and products that compliment the Pure Irish honey very well and also offer variety to the consumer.  For example, we now stock Manuka honey from New Zealand, Orange Blossom Honey or Tasmanian Leatherwood Honey.  We also have a range of preserves, both organic and non organic with alcohol, fruit cakes, Christmas products and most recently a lovely pure, authentic Extra Virgin Olive Oil.

Honey is never “just honey” and there are hundreds of different tastes, colours and textures. For those who aren’t too sure they like honey or want a bit of variety, the new Sarah’s Wonderful Honey range is great as it provides honey with a little twist – for example, ginger, blueberries, sour cherries or mango.

BeekeepingThere are many questions about honey that can be answered by visiting our website, (www.mileeven.com ), such as why does it crystallise? The Mileeven website has a really interesting FAQ section. There is also fascinating videos on YouTube showing Sarah Gough and her dad with a swarm of bees.

Mileeven has won 12 Great Taste Awards, Innovation Awards, Gulfood Awards for Best new Brand and Best New Functional Food and is recommended by The Bridgestone Guide and Georgina Campbell. Try it for yourself today from your local shop or from www.mileeven.com .  If one of the products you are looking for is not available on the website, you can email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it." mce_' + path + '\'' + prefix + ':' + addy64868 + '\'>'+addy_text64868+'<\/a>'; //--> and we can send it directly.

Contact details for Mileeven Fine Foods:

Sarah Gough

General Manager

Mileeven Fine Foods

Tel: 00353 (0) 51-643368

Mob/Cell: 00353 (0) 85-7054629

Fax: 00353 (0) 51-643387

www.mileeven.com

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Written by Tom Byrne

Parent Category: Cottage Industry

Category: Artisan Ireland

Created: 04 August 2012

Last Updated: 05 January 2016

User Rating: 5 / 5

The Sweetest Thing.  

By Tom Byrne.

Scratch the surface of Irish industry and you will find one of two things: drink and farming. Dig a little deeper and an abundance of exciting unique produce comes to the fore. Take The Sweetest Thing for example. Ask the Irish public to name different chocolate companies and you will get the same responses: Mars, Galaxy, Hershey’s and Cadburys will be high on everyone’s list, but mention that 90% of the Cadbury products consumed in Ireland are actually produced in Dublin using pure Kerry milk and most of the same people will look at you in astonishment!

After working in Cadbury Ireland for nearly 35 years, it became clear to me that this gap in knowledge of Irish chocolate stretched further than even I was aware.   With retirement fast approaching and three children and a wife at home, I saw an opportunity and took it upon myself to go away and actively fill these gaps. I consider myself an expert in chocolate manufacture on a large scale.  It was fascinating and eye opening to learn of all the under-acknowledged, smaller, chocolate companies in Ireland and the different things they all had to offer.

Hot Chocolate drink

From a very young age Irish industry was a part of my life.  It seemed almost a given that the men in my family would work for Guinness.  For several generations on both sides of my family, the Byrnes and the McGuirks would find themselves inside St James’ Gate.   It was my father and my grandfathers before him that gave me my affinity for all things local.  After all, there is a kind of pride that is associated with family honour and tradition.   This is something that was built from the ground, for us, by us.

In early 2010, the Sweetest Thing opened its doors with the original concept of becoming the first Cadbury Chocolate Shop in Ireland; an idea of mine whilst still working for Cadbury that I had “put on the ‘back burner”.   Armed with my new found enthusiasm for all things chocolate and everything Irish, (instead of only Cadbury) our future would be a celebration of Irish chocolatiering.

The intention was to push Irish brands such as Lir, Lily O Brien, Chez Emily and Cadbury Ireland made products as well as creating a niche in artisan chocolate products from different suppliers. We developed a flagship drink, the Sweetest Thing Hot Chocolate, incorporating luxurious melted Belgian chocolate, creamy Cadbury hot chocolate all topped off with delicious fresh cream, marshmallows and Cadbury Flake to finish. From here, we started to create an array of new and exciting hot and cold drinks to accentuate the menu.  The shop is filled with the ambiance of the ‘old chocolate shop’ and is adorned with many original Cadbury images and pictures. The lighting is warm and our patrons feel very snug and at home in the shop whilst enjoying one of our many offerings.

Sweetest Thing in Temple BarWe have just opened a new branch in the Temple Bar arch which is steeped in old Dublin tradition, located opposite the H’apenny Bridge. In the new Bar we offer 125 hot chocolate drinks and some 80 different Milk Shakes. It is the only exclusive hot chocolate bar in Dublin which specializes in so many varieties of exquisite tasty drinks. It was another piece of innovation with a gap in the market identified and utilized. It was observed that there was a spate of milkshake bars that had opened up in or around the city center but nothing along the same ilk for hot chocolates. Thus we decided to open our specialist hot chocolate bar!

We would take different chocolate bars and ingredients and melt them into the hot chocolate, to create a fantastic array of flavours and tastes palatable to everyone.

When one enters the Sweetest Thing, one immediately feels the rich heritage of a chocolate past with a modern touch, blended with the aroma of chocolate, mixed with the excellent Moak Coffee; a beautifully dark Sicilian coffee with a thick, bitter crème, handmade and served with care by our warm and friendly baristas.

Our mission is to make sure that our customer is king at all times; to ensure they have a great experience when they come into our shops. We strive to continue to increase the range of Irish Chocolate offerings and to develop some of our own branded bars and chocolate truffles etc.  Our partners, Colm located in the Bachelors Walk shop and James located in the Temple Bar area are on hand most days to serve our customers. Unlike any of our competitors we offer a range and not just one type of chocolate to our customers.

Within the stores we can offer a range of coffees, teas, and a selection of deserts all chocolate based with a rich covering of melted hot chocolate. We also supply a beautiful range of artisan chocolate in a unique ‘pick and mix’ style; something we’re sure our customers will enjoy greatly!

A new and exciting range of products which are being kept under wraps for now are being developed for the firm and will be available in the new year if not before for sale by internet order or through the shops.

We believe we have a unique experience for all customers and are continuing to expand and explore some new choices. Our hand made truffles which are carefully prepared by the finest chocolatiers contain the passion which goes into making them.

Stop by and see us!  When it comes to chocolate, we are IRELANDS BEST, A CUT ABOVE THE REST!