WEXFORD DOUBLE

Kilmore Quay gull is buying Irish

FOCUS ON BUYING LOCAL

You really need your thinking cap on when
shopping these days. I’m again talking about buying Irish, buying local. Not always the first choice offered to you so you need to be aware and awake.

It is not only in supermarkets that you can lose the focus. Strolling around the mall in Blackpool Shopping centre the other day and I noticed that FreshCo, a fruit and veg shop, was rather busy. Busy not so much with the fruit and veg but with their ice-cream sales.

I walked around the shop and saw a good range of their main products. Then I noticed a couple of racks of jams and relishes. I was on the lookout for a few items and was impressed with nicely packaged jars. And then the penny dropped – they were all English, all quite good I’m sure.

Now with my Buy Local cap on, I was about to exit the shop but, at the last minute, noticed another rack, packed with the products of Wexford Home Preserves.  Operating since 1988, they have a handy website with some recipes for you to try . They make jams and marmalades and that marmalade (€2.99) that I bought was well up to scratch.

If you are in the English Market, you may well buy Irish by default. I was there the other day and thought I might get myself a pot of honey There are some unusual products placements there. For instance, you can buy venison and kangaroo at a poultry stall and I bought my honey at a butchers.

Coughlan’s were the butchers and they had honey by two suppliers. I know the Molaga honey so I said to myself I’d try the Wexford Honey (by J. Wallace of Horeswood). It was fifty cent cheaper and had a nice picture of a bee on a blossom on the lid. Can’t tell you much more except to say the quality was excellent and I  thought it worth my fiver.

So now you Wexford folk, I reckon you owe the Cork growers and producers a turn or two. Your exports, strawberries, potatoes and now jam and honey, are doing well here but time to balance the books! Seriously, when  you go out shopping, keep that word local active in your brain. Easy to get distracted.