Food and Drink producers from across Laois, Longford, Offaly and Westmeath came together to attend the Midlands Flavours ‘Every Brand has a Recipe’ event in Skelly’s Bar, Ballymahon.
MC and host for the event was Annie Dunne from The Art of Grate Food, leading an informative panel discussion focused on brand strategy, telling the brand / business story and using digital platforms such as TikTok to increase brand awareness, with Áine Dowling, Head of Food at Avoca, Tamara Fitzpatrick, Rural Affairs reporter at the Irish Independent and food entrepreneur Laura Vogan, owner of S’more’a’licious. The event also heard from Conor Kilduff of Love Irish Food and Eoin Tynan from Longford Enterprise Office on the supports available to food and drink producers from their local enterprise offices across the region. Sincere thanks to the team at Skelly’s Bar in Ballymahon for their hospitality, themselves champions of local produce from their locality.
The importance of having an umbrella brand such as Midlands Flavours was highlighted as a key differentiator for region, bringing collaboration, fostering partnerships and bringing a recognition for the region’s producers that is putting Midlands food and drink on the map and highlighting the outstanding produce the region has to offer.
Developing a unique and authentic food and drink story
For food and drink businesses themselves, the panel looked at the importance of the story in creating and building a brand. Producers should look to their experience, their own personal story, the heritage of their locality or their recipes. The goal is to create a USP, a story which makes their product and brand more memorable and builds a relationship with the customer.
Avoca’s Áine Dowling spoke of the values of authenticity in brand building. Having begun as a weavers in a Wicklow mill, the Avoca brand continues to focus on this as a central element to their story. Food over time has grown to become central to the story, with a continued focus on authenticity in their focus on taste, quality and provenance. When it comes to getting on retail shelves, once a food and drink producer has the fundamentals right in terms of packaging, legislation, and being shelf-ready, then it’s time for producers to do their homework on retailers. Knowing what makes a food product different, how it answers a need for the retailer and their customers and how it’s different from competitors. Producers should also be aware of their retail proposition in terms of pricing and margins and, importantly, how they will fulfil stocking requirements and demand.
Food entrepreneur Laura Vogan created her business Smor’a’licious during lockdown, initially creating a range of marshmallow ‘smore’ kits and selling these online. With no background in food or business, she saw sales take off as the products proved popular on social media. Within a short space of time, the business had grown and Laura began to make her own marshmallows and chocolates in-house, winning awards, growing the business and becoming very popular across Instagram and TikTok. A game-changer for the business was the introduction of a Dubai Chocolate Marshmallow Smore, which went viral on TikTok and changed the business completely, with Laura now employing 9 staff from her new factory and going on to win awards with Blas na hEireann and Great Taste. The business is now focusing on developing their retail presence to expand their own their social customer base. Laura gave attendees a masterclass in how to use social media to grow their food businesses, with consistency and customer service being at the heart of everything her business does.
Irish Independent rural affairs reporter Tamara Fitzpatrick gave Midlands food and drink producers attending the event and insight on approaching the media and encouraged producers to tell her the who and the why the behind the brand. Nearly as important as the product itself, it’s key to share more about the person behind the product as this is what resonates with readers and makes a food business more memorable. The journey is important, the challenges and how they overcame them, that being what people most want to hear about.
Local Longford beef producer Herbert Farrell introduced his truly unique business at the event, Inis Cloithrinn Droimeann. Herbert farms rare Droimeann cattle on Inchcleraun Island on Lough Ree. The native breed are unique to Ireland and are known for their ability to thrive by foraging for their food, preferring to forage on grass and plants growing on poor quality land, leading to a unique flavour and marbling profile on his organic beef. His Droimeann herd live on Inchcleraun (Inis Cloithrinn) island on Lough Ree, the island has long been famed in Irish mythology as the place where Queen Maeve of Connacht died. Herbert has begun farming his unique heritage breed on the island and is already supplying Skelly’s in Ballymahon, as well as supplying butchers in Dublin.
Supports from Love Irish Food and Local Enterprise Offices
Conor Kilduff of Love Irish Food then introduced the members group to attendees, giving an overview of the origins and successes of the Love Irish Food brand which was established to ensure Irish food and drink brands could collectively gain a stronger foothold with multinational retailers. From their initial beginnings with 9 members, Love Irish Food has grown to 145 member brands, with all members being Irish producers, using Irish ingredients where possible.
Finally, Eoin Tynan of Longford Local Enterprise Office gave attendees an overview of the many supports available to food and drink producers across the region from their Local Enterprise Offices, located in each county.
The Every Brand has a Recipe event was organised and hosted by Midlands Flavours, which is the Midlands Food and Drink Network. The Network works with over 100 regional food and drink producers located in the Midlands region and is co-funded by the Government of Ireland and the European Union under the EU Just Transition Fund 2021-2027.
