A SELECTION of start-up food producers, which are part of the Food Academy programme, will be showcasing their products in an upcoming event taking place in Supervalu Castletroy, Limerick. Running for Friday and Saturday over the coming bank holiday weekend, customers are invited to come along and taste the delicious range these small food producers have to offer.
There will be twenty food producers sampling their range at the event including Martina’s Seafood, Cool Beans, Silver Darlings, Everest Granola Cups, Clotilde’s Fruit Compote, Lily’s Tea and Temple Dairy to name a few.
The Food Academy programme is a joint initiative between Bord Bia, the Local Enterprise Office Network and SuperValu to support start-up food businesses. It has helped hundreds of small food businesses gain their first retail listings in SuperValu stores. The programme supports hundreds of budding entrepreneurs, stocks hundreds of local artisan products on SuperValu shelves and creates hundreds of local jobs in the process.
One of the producers at this event is Kookee, a range of homemade cookies. Pauline Clarke got her inspiration for her company after many hours of baking cookies with her children. She had given up work to become a carer for her eldest autistic son. Pauline decided that Kookee would be a wonderful way to care for her kids and took the plunge of turning her hobby into a business. Kookee is available in selected SuperValu stores through the support of Food Academy. Today both Pauline and her husband are employed in the company which is going from strength to strength, with nine flavours including gluten and wheat free varieties.
Another such start-up food producer is De Róiste Puddings. Jimmy Allen ran a heating and plumbing company until the recession hit in 2008. When the family business eventually became unviable, he and his family took an age-old family recipe for black and white pudding and launched De Róiste. Today De Róiste is a thriving business stocked in SuperValu stores throughout Ireland, enabling Jimmy to employ his children in his business.
SuperValu Castletroy is inviting customers to come along and listen to the stories of these passionate food producers with big ideas who, having embarked on the Food Academy journey, took chances, gave up jobs, invested their savings and are now well on the road to becoming the next Irish food success stories.
