One of the struggles for growers is to differentiate themselves in the marketplace. Broadly speaking the market does not care about the variety/source/grower of something – they are presented as homogenous offerings.
Living Flavour is an Irish herb brand developed by a 3rd generation Plant Nursery business. It is complimented by a nicely designed and delivered website.
keith
Warwick Quinton is writing a blog about his experience of opening a sourdough bakery/cafe in Australia. In it he shares the reasons why as well as the challenges around using a woodfired oven.
Nicely written. Good luck with the venture 🙂
keith
Equator Coffees is, in their words, a coffee roaster, tea purveyor and coffee farm owner offering distinctive micro-lot coffees and rare teas to fine restaurants, hotels and retailers.
They have built out a storefront within their Facebook page allowing you to complete a purchase without leaving Facebook. Does this make sense? Probably – although it was wierd for me to see the shopping area in that environment.
Should small food brands sell within Facebook? I guess it is similiar to selling your brand in a multinational retailer – some producers see that as a good thing to do and others do not. There are a lot of grey areas when you mix ideals and passions with commerce.
keith
Tony and Julie Hook have been making cheese for 35 years and it was a 15 year old cheddar that caught my eye. On that batch:
The cheese is unique because cheddar tends to turn bitter or acidic with age. Most supermarket cheddar is 1 to 3 months old.
The secret to aging cheddar successfully is starting with a good batch of cheese in the vat, Hook said. He gives a lot of the credit to the milk he uses from small dairy farms within eight miles of the Mineral Point cheese factory.
You can read more on it here.
keith
http://www.youtube.com/v/uoLvyke9WxA&hl=en&fs=1
This is interesting, a system called Traceable Coffee put in place by producers to link consumers to the producers. A good website with a number of videos covering various aspects of the system.
Awareness of producers, as well as the brands who sit inbetween, is an important part of encouraging small food brands.
keith
For small food producers to survive some decide to go really upmarket and this appears to be a good example of that.
This Spanish chocolatier Chocolat Factory commissed a French design firm to come up with a number of ideas – two of which you can see above. A series of chocolate domes leading to a cocoa bean and a pie chart in chocolate!
The collaboration was featured by FastCompany in the US.
keith
One of the many things I got used to in England was the variety of beers which were brewed in small, local breweries and encouraged by groups such as CAMRA.
Ireland was a wasteland in 1995 when I returned and it was many years before a momentum built up which would see consumers pull away from the output of the multinationals who owned the market.
Cormac O’Dwyer and Tom Dalton are responsible for one of the newest additions to the scene. They started the Dungarvan Brewing Company in April 2010 and are getting great reviews for their products.
keith
Good bread was almost destroyed in Ireland – with a rush to the supermarkets to purchase white sliced pans or par-baked wonder loafs the art of baking almost disappeared.
Fortunately there remain a number of bakers with a long heritage (Keoghs in my local area being one of those) and some newcomers such as Blazing Salads. They have a great selection from a family with a 30 year+ background in good food.
keith
[photo courtesy of the Organic Supermarket where you can purchase this bread online, the Blazing Salads website does not have a single decent photo of the breads]
biabeag (small food) 