O’Shea Farms from Piltown, Co Kilkenny recently joined forces with Meadowfresh Foods in Tallow, Co Waterford to market and supply fresh Irish chipping potatoes, a partnership that could see Ireland back producing significant amounts of chips for chip shops and distributors throughout the country.
TJ O’Shea, director of O’Shea Farms, declared that a lot of chip shops and restaurants want to use Irish-grown potatoes but have trouble sourcing them.
“The whole idea is to eliminate the country’s reliance on imported potatoes and promote the production of Irish-grown potatoes. Traditionally, Irish chip shops have been using imported potatoes to make fresh chips, with the country importing over 80,000t of potatoes every year. Chip shops prefer Markie potatoes because they are a decent size, have very few eyes, and fry to a lovely creamy-white color. That’s where we come in: our growers grow the potatoes to the highest standard. Some of them have specialized storage facilities for chipping potatoes. They then pack the potatoes, and Meadowfresh distributes them,” he mentioned.
O’Shea Farms have a pool of over 40 growers throughout the country supplying potatoes to Meadowfresh for storage, packing, and distribution, according to the Independent.
The partnership is in conjunction with the Potato Development Group, an industry body that aims to increase the volume of home-grown potatoes sold in Irish chip shops and restaurants.
