Hope for the Future

by Kenneth Keavey

What a week it’s been. It seems wrong to feel you are struggling with everyday issues when there are such terrible things going on in the world, and yet life goes on. We still need to get up and do our jobs and get on with all the other things that life brings to our door.

As we push on into 2022 it is hard to know which way to look to understand what kind of a year it will be. A few weeks back there was plenty of reasons to be optimistic, finally we were emerging from a dark period and there was a sense of relief and hope for the future, much of that now seems to have changed.

Our heart here on the farm has gone out to the people of Ukraine, and there have been some emotional discussions, and discussion too about what we can do as a small business to help. We decided there certainly were things we could do, easily and quickly, so we did them. We have changed our donation box to the “Ukraine donation box” it is €30 and we are topping up the value by an extra €10 for each box. We are also donating €1 for each delivery we make this week (and next). All of the money raised will be given to UNICEF Ireland. We have decided to keep the appeal going for another week and we have already raised close to €3000! So, thank you so much to all who have bought a donation box or received a delivery this week.

I have found at times this week as the real pressures of business bear down and the cost of living and the inflationary pressures increase that there is no where to turn to. We seem to be caught in a perfect storm, we are in the food production and delivery business, the cost of everything has gone up so much, it is eye watering as I am sure most of you are feeling these cost of living pressures too.

We have been looking at this issue every which way you can imagine and have been trying to keep things on an even keel. We are doing what we can, if you look in the special section of our website you will see discounts on some of the staple products, it may not be much but it is a start and hopefully a help. Remember too we deliver to your door and if that means you save a trip in car not only are you helping the planet now you will also be saving money.

While all of these things are flying around in my head I find that there is always one thing that gives me an unequivocal feeling of progress, hope and optimism for the future and that is the farm. The season is starting again we have ploughed our first fields, we have sown our first crops, we are planting our first plants the week after St. Patricks week. The earth smells wonderful, the birdsong is amazing and the break in the clouds to give us the most amazing blue skies with a frosty farmscape have been intoxicating.

So, whenever things are getting that little bit too much, remember you have been one of the people that have contributed to nearly €3000 for people who need it much more that we do, and the fresh air, the blue sky and the earth beneath our feet are always there we just need to stop and look.

Here’s to a great St Patrick’s week ahead.

Kenneth

PS There is also a 15% off all of our orders for next week just use the code “STPADDYS” when you order.

From the farm or IRISH this week: Potatoes, leeks, spinach, kale, mushrooms, parsnips, cabbage (3 types), purple sprouting broccoli, celeriac, swede and chard.

Also Remember we are not delivering by courier next week as DPD are not operating on Thursday or Friday.

The Benefits of Buying Local

by Liz Child

With recent world events, it has become startlingly clear how important being self sufficient as a country can be. Don’t get us wrong, we love to trade with the world, we all love oranges, olives, wine, tea, coffee, chocolate etc. Keeping our fridges full with a healthy variety of fresh fruits and vegetables year round means importing from our organic farming connections around the world (by the way, we never use airfreight). Trading with the world is a positive thing, being friendly with our neighbours and part of unions benefits us all – nutritionally and to promote peace and prosperity. But, it’s also important to us to support local and buy local food as much as possible. Food security is a real issue and supporting local farmers and paying them fair prices (we’re looking at you supermarkets!) is always going to be an important topic that we will talk about regularly. So this week, with St Patrick’s Day on the calendar, we are celebrating all things local and Irish.

Good for You

Local food is fresh, more flavoursome and even more nutritious than food that has travelled! When there has been less time between harvest and your home, there are more nutrients. Did you know that as soon as a fruit or vegetable is picked it starts to loose nutrients? So the quicker it gets to your plate, the better. Locally grown food intended for local consumers will be picked when it is ripe too, so you’ll be getting the best flavour as well as avoiding waxes and preservatives found on food that has travelled a long way.

Good for the Planet

Buying locally produced food, of course means less food miles. ‘Food miles’ is the term for the distance food is transported from the time of its making until it reaches the consumer. Choosing local food requires less transport, therefore less fuel/energy is used to get the food to your plate – so local food has a smaller carbon footprint because it produces less transport related emissions. Less transport usually means less need for packaging too. We use as little packaging as possible to get our food to you, and where we do use packaging we choose paper or compostable bags over plastic.

Good for your Community

Supporting local food producers means more work and more money in your community. Spending money with Irish business will mean more Irish jobs, more Irish tax and therefore better services for everyone. Shopping locally strengthens the local economy too. Local businesses are more likely to recirculate the money locally – not just on wages and taxes, but also on local suppliers and services. This leads to a stronger financial foundation for our neighbours and communities and a more recession-resilient local economy.

Will you support the local economy and help Ireland build better food security by buying a box of organic fruit, vegetables and groceries from us today? We deliver nationwide. Have a look at all we can deliver to your door here.

Food Waste & Fussy Pigs

by Kenneth Keavey

Food waste has always upset me and I think I get that from my mum.  Pre-covid my mum was a regular in our packing shed, salvaging any waste produce for a variety of charities, she was the ultimate food waste champion. 

Her generation was not one to waste anything. 

It wasn’t until the plastic clad, sell more, always on, supermarket culture took over did we as a generation decide it was ok to dump food. Or was it really our decision? I think not. It was the supermarkets that decided for us and made it ok to waste food and to grade out perfectly good produce based on how something looks.

In our business we try really hard to keep food waste to a minimum. It can be challenging as we are dealing with so many different fresh items, and we have harvests and deliveries arriving everyday. We run 5 different cold rooms, and we run some at different temperatures to ensure the optimum temperature is maintained to keep produce fresh.  We have also committed to not using plastic.  

(Incidentally, just this week it has been shown that despite the Supermarkets railing on about it, plastic does not actually reduce food waste, it can actually increase it!)

But back to our story, we need to make sure you our customer gets the most amazing quality.  Everything piece of produce gets inspected, and while sometimes the odd one gets through,  we work really hard to deliver on our promise of only delivering amazing quality produce to your door.

“Grade outs” : produce that we know will not make it to you our customers in first class condition, are left on a shelf in our packing shed and are generally used to make staff boxes and our team can help themselves. Finally, what is left, the stuff that we don’t eat ourselves usually ends up in Florence and George’s bellies (our rescue pigs!)

I always thought pigs would eat anything. As it turns out I was wrong. Pigs do indeed have some serious food preferences. I know because just over a year ago we took charge of two rescue pigs George and Florence. They have the run of an acre of mostly forested land and will live out their long and leisurely lives here on our organic farm. (Incidentally pigs can live until they are 20!).

Who would have known that pigs are fussy eaters? Well, I can tell you that they will not eat broccoli or kale, they are not partial to courgettes and apparently mushrooms do not tickle their palettes either.

It would seem then that they know what they like and what they don’t like. But when it comes to wonky shapes, and blemished skin they see only food. 

I don’t know that supermarkets take food waste seriously.  A couple of years ago, a person who would know told me about 12 pallets of pineapples that were dumped as a result of a supermarket quality inspection failing them because of some blemishes. This happens.

Maybe being that little bit more mindful of our food can go along way in reducing our food waste, and the funny thing is it can actually end up saving us quite a bit of money too.

Here’s to less food waste!

Kenneth

When It’s Gone It’s Gone

by Kenneth Keavey

If Joe, or Ella or Hannah take on the vegetable growing gene, that will make us 5th generation vegetable growers here in the West of Ireland. We are lucky, our model of growing and distributing food protects us, to an extent at least.

“When it’s gone it’s gone” the words of Cathal Lenehan the second biggest brussel sprout grower in the country as he calls a halt to his farming career for good this week. As prices in supermarkets continue to erode any chance of vegetable farmers in this country surviving, Cathal has put a call out, a plea for them to recognise that farmers just can’t survive on what they are receiving from supermarket buyers.

In 2006 the last of the sugar beet farms closed in Ireland. A whole industry disappeared overnight, the skills, the experience, the infrastructure disappeared, lost forever. As we face down the inevitable pressure of producing more food for more people from the same land area, it seems extremely short sighted that there are not adequate supports put in place now to ensure farmers such as Cathal are protected.

Cheap imports undercut the market. Supermarkets devalue our fresh food, they use them as loss leaders. It is all about the bottom line. Supermarkets are in the food supply industry, they have a responsibility to mind their suppliers, pushing them to the edge in the short term, in the long term will not yield stability, resilience or loyalty. Ultimately this will lead as with the sugar beet industry to devastation for the fresh vegetable industry in this country, farms that have been growing vegetables for generations will suddenly disappear.

How sad would that be? Losing the art of being able to produce our own food, the art and skill of taking care of the land, of being able to produce viable healthy food on a commercial scale. That is not something you can just make happen overnight, it is learned over time and passed down from generation to generation.

I have never had any time for the supermarket model of procurement (buying). In 2016 we said good-bye to supermarket supplying for good. We were told one Monday out of the blue we needed to decrease our prices, and collect any unsold produce from the supermarket and reimburse the supermarket for it. We were told there would be no order that week until we complied, they were our single biggest customer, they had all the power. Well so they thought.

We were one of the lucky ones we had our home delivery business to fall back on, and although it was a major financial hit and in the short-term things were very shaky it was the best decision we ever made.

The good news is you made that decision possible. Your support means more than you know. It means we can breathe a little, it means we can plant trees, it means we can rest the ground and allow it to recover between crops, it means we can support biodiversity on our farm. It means we can give the attention to producing healthy happy food for you.

Thank you.

Kenneth

Every Year it Happens

by Kenneth Keavey

Every year it happens, we are waiting and waiting and then bang out of the blue it all starts again. I guess life is like that sometimes, we push and we shove and want to change things, and then when we finally just accept the ways things are (often because what we were doing was making no difference anyway) and least expect it things fall into place.

So it was this morning with my first farm walk in two weeks. We have been struggling with the dark closed in feeling of winter, and then this morning bright sunshine, singing birds, and life were evident all around.

The crops need to have our focus again, they are flying. We have the best kale harvest in years, our leeks are amazing as is the purple sprouting broccoli.

We are out in the fields everyday but today we start in earnest after we have finally shrugged off winters cloak.

Nature is very subtle, we are always on the watch for change, and somehow just suddenly it changes without you noticing. Like a seed germinating, one day it is a seed and the next it is a plant is has germinated, just like that, this is the miracle and power of nature. It is the same with the kale regrowing, it just happens when the time is right. Or the birds singing a spring morning chorus they just begin, and wow were they out in force this morning. 

I get excited at this time of the year, the start of a new growing season and the challenges and opportunities it brings fill me with hope for the year. 

It is a natural cycle and as we emerge from the dark winter months there is a sense at least on the farm of a new slate, a fresh start, a chance to begin the journey anew.

Nature is wonderful like that, and up until this period in man’s history it has been stable and consistent. I read this morning that the Gulf Stream which here in Northern Europe we rely on for our stable weather patterns is not in good shape. 

These complex global climate regulation mechanisms are hard to understand I would imagine, but there are clear signs that climate stability all over our one and only beautiful home is being compromised.

I do admit to getting frustrated with the slow pace of change, it doesn’t make sense to me. There is a phenomenal opportunity now to take the risk and invest in Green Energy, to cut consumption and do so much more. We as a small farm have done it, and we as a small country can do it.

But maybe it is like the kale regrowing or the seed germinating, you can’t force the seed to grow faster or the kale to appear faster, but all of a sudden without even noticing it has changed.

Maybe that is happening now too with movement to cut consumption, power our lives with green energy, moving to more plant-based diets, all these things are happening.

The most amazing thing is you are causing this change by supporting us.

Thank you.

Kenneth

Happy New Year!

by Kenneth Keavey

I am not one for new year resolutions, it’s not that I am against them or for them I just don’t make them. But there certainly is something about the new year that seems to encourage change. Maybe it’s having passed the shortest day and being on the trajectory to better weather and longer days gives a feeling of hope. Maybe it’s the over indulgence and excess of the Christmas period. Maybe a little niggling feeling that’s been there all along just bubbles closer to the surface.

For the farm it marks at least on paper the start of a new season, the planning begins and the seeds must be selected and the rotation planned. I am always a little bemused at how long ago the start of the last growing season was and at the same time how fast time passes. It is one of those mysteries of getting older, I guess. It’s very difficult to make plans anymore. For the farm last year we were a little too ambitious with our planning, we planned and grew too many crops. This year we are taking a more sensible approach and scaling back a little of certain crops and a growing a little more of others. That being said, the winter has been benign, mild and not too wet and the crops remaining in the fields are in good order and we have plenty to harvest over the coming months.

Whilst there has been plenty of good hearty vegetables consumed here over Christmas we have also had our fair share of chocolate. I am guessing that there will have been few houses or few people in the country who did not encounter a box of ‘Milk Tray’ during this festive Season. Growing up they were the main stay of our family evening, and my mother for some reason never trusted me with them, I can still hear, “only one Kenneth” every time I see a box. That instruction was always reserved for me and never aimed at my siblings strangely enough. These sweets today seem to be a far cry from the sweets I remember as a child.

If you happen to have a box lying around take a look at the ingredients. I didn’t recognise most of them. Apart from sugar I couldn’t say yeah that’s in our cupboard. The result of course is not good, the food itself is now a synthetic engineered product from ultra-cheap and highly processed ingredients. Sugar is the first ingredient, followed by palm oil as the second, for those that don’t know, ingredients are listed in the order of quantity. Then there is the cheap waste by products from the milk industry and more. The intention it seems has been to make the product as cheap as possible and to sell as much as possible for maximum profit, with scant regard for taste or quality. This unfortunately is a common approach to many foods today.

Compromising on taste and quality never leads anywhere good. This race to the bottom can end up costing us our health and the planet too pays a high price for these unsustainable cheap ingredients. So, while I do not embrace the idea of new year resolutions, the one that I come back to every single year without fail is to “Eat more fresh fruit and veg”. I know too that I won’t have to worry about my mum’s mantra of “only take one”! as I reach for another apple.

Have a great new year, thank you for all you have done for us. We are back with our normal deliveries next week. Take care.

Kenneth

A Very Irish Christmas

by Kenneth Keavey

Against all my best inclinations I have decided I am not going to launch into a rant about the damage the supermarket food culture has wrought on our land. I have decided to instead embrace the positive this week, to celebrate the little wins and the amazing things our people, suppliers, and you our customers are doing.

We have the most amazing suppliers, the best in the world, and they are local, Irish and sustainable. Just today I met Titta from Lilly’s eco clean, she exudes positivity and is dedicated to the sustainable cause. Yesterday I had reason to speak to Franck, our local native Galwegian French man who supplies us with his amazing organic wine, he is always in good form.

We have had to give the harvest of our own leeks a little break until after Christmas and therefore I was on the phone to Roy Lyttle one of our amazing potato and leek suppliers. Cameron from Battlemount organic farm supplied us just a couple of weeks ago with his own freshly pressed organic apple juice from apples in his own orchard and the most amazing potatoes on this island.

Ralph Haslam and I go back along way and he supplies the gorgeous organic cheese, yogurt and if milk (I believe the best milk in Ireland) you may know his products better as “Mossfield Organic farm”. There is of course the cultured food company and Synerchi kombucha, and the Little Milk Company and Bunalun Organic, all great IRISH companies. Yorg from Solaris teas makes his tea right here in Galway and Blakes Organic roast their coffee in Leitrim, the fantastic McCabes coffee roast their organic coffee beans in county Wicklow.

Then there is all the other Irish organic growers that supply us at times during the year such as Audrey and Mick from Millhouse organic farm. Joe Kelly in Westport, Padraigh Fahy in Beechlawn organic farm. Philip Dreaper in Coolnagrower organic farm and many more.

But the best supplier of all is our own farm and the amazing hard-working team of individuals that work tirelessly on our farm. They grow the best tasting, healthiest food you can buy anywhere. Our farm is the centre of our business, it is the heart, it is our cornerstone, it keeps us grounded and it keeps us deeply connected with our food, it never lets us stray from the right path.

That is not to say that we do not have the most amazing teams of packers and drivers and customer service people because we do, the very, very best. So we really understand and appreciate the hardwork and effort of all our other suppliers, they are all amazing, struggling with the ups and downs of running and owning a small business and working extremely hard to produce great IRISH products and make their business work especially during the last two years.

This brings me to our last stars, the real hero’s of our story and I guess you may know who that is? That is, you. Your support, your purchases, your positive (and constructive negative feedback) keeps us going, it puts money in our bank account to pay for all of the above. But and this is the big one, it keeps a strong growing sustainable system of food production going. So aside from the very best healthy and (we have no shame in saying) the most amazing tasting produce you are supporting an idea for a better food future.

Thank you and have a very merry, Irish Christmas!

Kenneth

Black Friday?

by Kenneth Keavey

The biggest winners from Black Friday are the big corporations, it is certainly not the small independent high street shops who after the last two years are under excruciating pressure to survive and are the very ones who can least afford to offer discounts.

What are we doing for Black Friday? We will not be offering a black Friday discount. This is our business decision, it doesn’t sit right with us, we cannot justify doing homage to this greatest day of consumption, whilst our planet teeters on the edge of collapse. We are doing what we have been doing every other week of the year, working hard at delivering to you the very best sustainable healthiest food you can get anywhere.

We do offer reward points for ordering, we offer double reward points for setting up a regular order, these rewards can be used to get money off your next orders.

We reward you, our customers, with occasional discounts as a thank you or when we have extra produce on our farm. We thank you (and where you want to place a larger order) by offering you free delivery when you order over €100. But these are thoughtful rewards to you our customers for shopping with us. The principle is different.

What else are we be doing for Black Friday?

We are in the fields harvesting, we are supporting several other local IRISH organic businesses, such as Mossfield organic farm whose organic cheese and milk and yogurt is the best in the country. We are packing our produce in paper or biodegradable plant-based bags. We are filling our recyclable boxes with your orders, boxes we collect and reuse again and again. We are, with your help, standing up for a better type of consumption. After all we all need to eat, that consumption cannot be avoided. Can we eat and consume better, can we support biodiversity whilst also supporting our bodies and our health? We would say yes, yes we can. We will be delivering your boxes to your doors in our electric van on some of our routes.

We have seen yet again this year that our farm has struggled to be profitable in it’s own right. How is this possible? We have our own market and yet we can only afford to pay our farm a set amount and the end result is a loss. Primary food production is a precarious business, can we afford to discount to celebrate Black Friday? No, and really what’s to celebrate?

The pressure on small businesses to participate in this voracious celebration of consumption is immense. There is no judgment here, it is difficult enough to exist and survive as a small business and sometimes you must do what you have to do. Conscious consumption of ethical, fair and sustainable food is the cornerstone of our business.

Thank you for supporting us, have a great Green Friday.

Kenneth

Our Food Choices Matter

by Kenneth Keavey

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.” Margaret Meade.

I remember as a child picking peas in my grandad’s garden. He had apple trees, he grew his own veg. I remember sitting on his lap drinking a mug of turnip juice, (I can’t imagine trying to get my kids to do that today!) most of the food was grown on his farm. He was without knowing it, growing, and providing healthy sustainable food for his family. Our food system has changed so much in a generation and our job has always been to turn the clock back and bring us back to the days when food tasted like food.

When was the last time you tasted a freshly harvested carrot, can you remember what it should taste like? There can be such pleasure in the simple foods and eating well. Healthy and sustainable food is what we have been delivering from our farm to people’s doors all over Ireland for the last 15 years.

November is still a month of local seasonal plenty. It is now that the real Irish vegetables come into their own, leeks, parsnips, swedes, kales, winter cabbage and carrots to name but a few.

On our farm the arrival of November allows a sigh of relief. The relentless pressure of the summer is finally winding down and we are settling into a routine of harvest. The trees are turning, the wild-flowers have gone to seed, the hedgerows are full of berries, the bees are getting ready to hibernate, even the birds are relaxing a little, everything seems to slow down. Something we could all do a little bit more of.

November too can be a time for reflection. As a farmer the simple things like tree planting, growing hedgerows and leaving wild patches can give enormous pleasure and there is an immensely powerful added benefit, they lead to better, healthier more sustainable food.

Our organic food and groceries are used to make lunches and dinners, fill larders and hopefully bring health and happiness to 1000’s of homes every week. Your choice to be part of our tribe, not only means that you are making the best choice for your health, you are also choosing to protect our planet and the environment; the absence of chemicals in our food mean a healthier planet and increased biodiversity on farms.

Our parents and grandparents chose well, they ate seasonally and locally, they ate less meat. Who doesn’t remember cabbage and turnip and the endless ways to cook potatoes! Maybe what we eat deserves a little more consideration (and you clearly think so)? Our food choices matter so much more than we will ever know.

So as the saying goes, choose wisely! We have more power than we realise.

Kenneth

There’s No Planet B

by Kenneth Keavey

Our story this year has many parts to it. The planning and advice, the hard work and organisation of the farm team. The fertility and soil management, the weather and the birds and the bees have all played their part.

Our amazing team of packers, rising each morning sometimes at 4am to get to work at 5am to start packing your orders. Finally, having you our customers willing to supporting our farm and a whole bunch of good luck has got us through to another autumn, my 17th year growing vegetables and our 15th year in business.

Growing vegetables commercially is a tough endeavour and in the stony wet land of the West of Ireland it is particularly challenging.  

The skill and art of growing our food is so important and we need to preserve this knowledge. It is invigorating to see so many small-scale growers embrace sustainable growing.

Yet, many commercial growers are struggling, the work is too hard, the price for their produce is too low, the seasons (due to climate change) are unpredictable, and planning for a market that is ever changing and is sometimes 12 months in the future makes it a precarious undertaking indeed.

As with everything and it is no different in our food system, decisions based purely on financial gain with no regard for our environment are causing devastation to our planet.  

It is much easier for a large supermarket buyer to import cheap produce, grown abroad where labour is inexpensive and where very often the working conditions are poor, and the attention paid to biodiversity is scant than buy more expensive IRISH grown crops.  

I am glad we have you our customers and that we do not need to knock on supermarket doors to sell our produce.

Our harvest is overflowing, now we have parsnips, carrots, swedes, cabbage, leeks, celery, pumpkin, kale and Brussels sprouts, the last of the broccoli and the soon to start purple sprouting broccoli and the first time in 10 years we will have celeriac.

I think you might taste the flavour in your in your boxes, tell us if you do! You will also notice the size of all our crops, the warm September and a soil temperature that is 5C above normal means growth has continued well past when it should have slowed leading to bigger produce. 

The days are closing in now and the weather is wet and it should be cool, but as I write this, we have temperatures here in Galway of 17C and it is 8pm, is this climate change in action right here on our doorstep? 

Our promise is simple, “When you get a box from us you do not need to think about whether you are choosing sustainably, we promise you are”. 

Your support for us means our farm survives and thrives, our people stay in jobs, and we get to mind our little patch of land here in the West of Ireland sustainably.

Thank you

Kenneth