Muckross Creamery products coming to a SuperValu store near you soon

By Sean Moriarty

A Muckross-based dairy farm is enjoying a new lease of life after being included in the SuperValu Food Academy which helps local food producers in market research and branding, food safety, marketing, finance and business development.

Now in its seventh year, SuperValu Food Academy is a unique food business development programme between SuperValu, Bord Bia and the Local Enterprise Offices.

The programme helps early-stage Irish food and drink businesses to get their start in the food retail sector with their first, all-important supermarket listing in SuperValu stores.

One of the Kerry food start-ups who came through the programme and who last week started to list in SuperValu stores is Muckross Ice Cream which is produced by Muckross Creamery.

Founded by fifth-generation dairy farmer John Fleming, who has diversified the family farm business in Killarney, Muckross produces a delicious range of ice cream using its own fresh milk, fresh cream and free-range eggs.

Before the “big bang” as John called the lockdown, Muckross Creamery, was supplying hotels like the Great Southern and The Brehon as well as the cinema and tourist attractions like the Killarney Brewing Company and Dinish Cottage.

Selection for the Academy could not have been at a better timed and he started supplying Daly’s SuperValue just as the first wave of re-starts were coming into operation.

“We started selling to the public last June and, as time went on, we caught a few breaks before the big bang,” John told the Killarney Advertiser. “We have been in Daly’s now for two weeks and hoped to be in Garvey’s in Tralee and Castleisland by now, we hope that will happen this week or next week, but Daly’s is going so well we have been just about coping with that. The timing could not have been better and the programme is so good, we would have learned a lot about marketing and social media even if were not selected.”

SuperValu is looking for additional food start-ups in Kerry to join its Food Academy programme, interested parties contact your Local Enterprise Office for an application form on www.localenterprise.ie by Friday, June 26.