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THEY MARKET THEMSELVES as some of Ireland’s “best-loved brands”, but many household names like Lyons Tea and Siúcra sugar now have little more than historic ties to the Emerald Isle.
The products are among a string of brands that lobby group Love Irish Food says consumers wrongly think are locally-made.
Other well-known products on the list include HB Hazelbrook Farm Ice Cream, named after the Rathfarnam farm where the business was started nearly 100 years ago.
Multinational grocery giant Unilever bought the brand in 1973 and now manufactures the product in one of its UK factories.
Fruitfield Old Time Irish marmalade, despite its name, is made in the UK by its Anglo-Irish parent company Valeo Foods.
The manufacturing for another Valeo-owned brand, Jacob’s Biscuits, has also been taken offshore to several European countries (although the company wouldn’t tell us where).
Consumers want to know the source
Love Irish Food executive director Kieran Rumley told TheJournal.ie consumers wanted to know where their food came from and the rules about source labelling which applied to products like beef should be extended to all groceries.
“It gives shoppers the information they need to decide if they want to keep buying food from a particular country,” he said.
They want to know where their fish comes from and where their meats come from, why shouldn’t that expand right through to branded and own-label groceries?”
Love Irish Food’s survey of 1,000 domestic shoppers found 95% wanted “country-of-origin” labelling on all groceries and drinks, while 87% tried to buy local products when they could.
Over €3 billion in food and drink products are imported into Ireland each year, but Rumley said most brands didn’t voluntarily state the source of the item.
The Cully & Sully story
Cully & Sully’s soups and hot pots have been an Irish success story since the company was started in 2004 using recipes from co-founder Cullen “Cully” Allen’s native Co Cork.
However the company, which was sold for about €10.5 million to US firm Hain Celestial last year, recently shifted its food manufacturing to the UK where its owner already has significant operations.
Allen said that personally he liked to know the origin of his food, but as a businessman he had taken a necessary step to get investment and see his enterprise grow.
“We are now selling in Belgium and we are looking to be selling soon in France and probably the UK – and we are an Irish brand which uses a lot of Irish ingredients, we fought hard for that,” he said.
We tried (to) expand three times and foundered. We are, relatively, such a small island compared to England and the rest of Europe.”
Allen said food provenance was “very complicated” for groceries because many products, like tea, might be manufactured in Ireland but all of the ingredients were still sourced overseas.
Not so Irish after all
Lyon’s Tea
History: Started out as a family business in Dublin’s High Street in 1902. Bought out by Anglo-Dutch grocery giant Unilever in 1996
Made: UK
Siúcra sugar
History: Began life as Irish Sugar in 1926, but the brand was later given the name Siúcra (Irish for sugar) to make it stand out. The company was privatised as Greencore before German refiner Nordzucker bought the brand in 2009
Made: Germany, the UK and other European countries
Jacob’s Biscuits
History: Started at Waterford in 1851 by brothers William and Robert Jacob. Later became part of the Jacob Fruitfield group before being bought out by major Irish food firm Valeo Foods in 2011
Made: Several different European countries, although Valeo doesn’t want to say exactly where
HB Hazelbrook Farm Ice Cream
History: Founded by the Hughes brothers at Hazelbrook Farm in Rathfarnam, Dublin in 1926. Bought by Unilever in 1973
Made: UK
Fruitfield Old Time Irish marmalade
History: Fruitfield preserves started in 1886 and it joined Jacob’s Biscuits as part of the Jacob Fruitfield group, later bought out by Valeo
Made: UK
Cully & Sully soups
History: Launched by Cullen Allen and Colum O’Sullivan in 2004 using recipes from the Ballymoe region in Co Cork. Sold lost year to US firm Hain Celestial for about €10.5 million
Made: UK
Bad a state as this nation is in, Think how much worse it would be without the likes of Intel. We must do everything in our power to keep them here! Good news for once.
Ireland has been very good to Intel equally as well. It works both ways.
Personally i think its great news. I just hope the current shower in government dont end up selling away our corporate tax rate to the EU. That would definitely cause a lot of multinationals to jump ship, and really leave our country down the creek without a paddle.
Enda favours Eurobonds, which may only happen in the context of ‘deeper fiscal union’ according the Merkel. Fiscal policy is the tax and expenditure policies governments use to manage the economy. Tax harmonisation will be a prerequisite for the introduction of Eurobonds, which makes sense. However, Eurobonds and a 12.5% corporation tax rate are mutually exclusive. The Irish government wants Eurobonds and to retain its corporation tax rate – The Greek government wants bailout funds without austerity. This is called having your cake and eating it, especially in today’s cutthroat financial environment.
Agreed Jerry, so signing up for this treaty, means that we (Ireland) will be forced to sign up for the CCT (consolidated corporate tax) which will mean the large multinationals that are in Ireland will see no specific benefit of being in Ireland. Our corporate tax rate is the key decision point for multi-nationals to come here and stay here. If that is messed with, all hell is going to break loose in this country, as the multi-nationals will opt for countries within europe that have lower wages, as this will be the only differentiator if the consolidated tax rate is adopted in Europe and Ireland.
I agree with you Cal, and it appears the government has a contradictory policy on this issue. A ‘no vote’ will maintain the status quo.
This is great news not only is intel creating hundreds of jobs in Ireland but it is also bringing us into the future with fantastic technology that will help to transform our lives as well.
And its a beautiful day.
Things are improving every day.
Great news!
I get sick hearing about all the foreign companies and how great they are! Doesn’t anyone see that they’re bleeding us dry! Huge amounts of IDA money( taxpayers money) is handed out in grants to these companies every year, and the huge profits are taken out of the country! All you hear from this Government is FDI this and FDI that! Let’s get up off our backsides and build our own companies! What’s to stop us? We’re supposed to be a highly educated people! So let’s prove it.
Great news indeed. Rodrigo, how many small business have been spawned from the likes of Intel? Anyway hope you are taking your own advice and building your own business and genuinely hope it will be a success for you
Great news and I can’t believe some want to throw away this momentum of jobs growth by voting NO.
A YES vote is the only certain to keep this good progress going.
HP cut thousands of jobs worldwide today to prompt “growth”. I always wonder do you guys mean growth in profits or growth in employment. But then of course I realise you always mean the first.
The overall jobs growth in the IT sector is huge. One company cutting back doesn’t reflect the whole industry.
Can you spell BUBBLE David?
Here we go! FG linking this to the referendum. Didn’t take long.
Linking the treaty to the household and water charges didn’t take long from the NO side either.
This is great news and hopefully more to come from foreign investors in Ireland
Its funny how HP loses jobs and Intel creates jobs.
One situation balances out another.
RTE have had this sort of balanced reporting technique for decades.
Propaganda will balance out everything.
This is good news – the staff in Intel Ireland know their jobs are safe. There might not be redundancies in HP, but if there is it could take the shape of early retirement packages. Stop being such a pessimist…
@Barry O’Brien: You don’t understand propaganda just before a vote so that makes me a pessimist.
Your failure to understand propaganda makes you the ignorant. How did you check the validity of this information just before you vote in a referendum?
I would rather be a pessimist than in your state.
The Buddhists call it “cosmic balance”. Here we say “sure it all comes out in the wash”.
Very presumptuous of you to say I don’t understand propaganda. I can assure you I do. And if this was a propaganda piece it would have FG/Lab written all over it. Alas, this does not… This is simply Intel following their “tick-tock” method of processor upgrades. After a two generations of CPU redesign and the die size is reduced, a fab needs to be upgraded to manufacture the new dies. The manufacturing plants outside of the USA are located in Ireland and Israel. One worry was that when the Ireland fab is out of date then Intel might build a new plant in another country rather than upgrade the Irish plant. This story is Intel confirming, to our delight, that they are upgrading the Irish plant. I don’t see Bruton crawling around taking credit…
@Barry O’Brien: Over 300,000 emigrants might disagree.
I heard this months ago from a reliable source long before the fiscal treaty, in fact it was so long ago I was beginning to doubt the source. Not waiting for the result of the vote…I don’t think?
Good news will be ‘stage-managed’ until after the referendum. Watch out for “Intel may pull this investment if there’s a no vote”.
the low corporation tax isn’t the only reason Intel are choosing to invest in Ireland. it’s also down to the performance of the Irish employees who have delivered best in class in quality and output and cost compared to other Intel sites. the Irish Intel employees are also compounding their reputation in america by working on new technologies with their american counterparts.
“Intel has warned that proposals are always subject to changes.”
i.e. you dare try to tax our multi-billion profits and we’ll be off to China. An economy built around this unsustainable model of investment is doomed to failure. Intel will leave eventually, might not be for 20 years but they will go.
Another stupid man.
Intel have an empty factory located in China that they’re keeping open in preparedness for any changes in taxation situation here. I have two friends working in Intel who have both been privy to this information. As said, completely unsustainable.
Intel will never put their newest processes in China, the F24 process uses old technology an practically runs itself in its maturity so that’s why these guys think that the current process could go there, Intel like many things about Ireland including our climate and education levels. P1272 is coming to Ireland supposedly as HVM2 which is good news for the confidence in the Irish plant. Also many guys who were once based in Ireland have gone up the ranks and are now very fond of Ireland.
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