Rathowen firm’s Irish twist on Italian dish launches in shops
When life gives you lemons, make lemonade, the saying goes – but if the phrase were to be reinvented by Rathowen farmer Kenneth Greene, it would probably read: When life gives you eggs, make frittata or quiche.
Kenneth and wife Kathleen, owners of the Greenes Family Kitchen free-range eggs brand, are now using eggs from their own hens to make the range of quiches and frittatas that they have just begun selling commercially.
“We set up the free-range eggs business on our farm in 2018, and this year, we set up Greenes Family Kitchen to produce food from our wonderful eggs,” says Kenneth.
When Kenneth says his eggs are free-range, he explains that the hens are out all day, wandering the farm, enjoying access to a wood – and they have won a ‘Great Taste’ award.
Development of the frittatas got a boost thanks to the selection of the enterprise as a participant in this year’s SuperValu Food Academy programme.
The programme, which is delivered in conjunction with Bord Bia and the Local Enterprise Offices, gives early-stage food and drink producers an opportunity to get their products on SuperValu shelves 52 weeks of the year.
The products developed by the 33 Irish food and drink producers who have completed this year’s programme are available in the Taste of Local section in SuperValu stores.
“Frittata is an Italian dish actually, but we’ve put a bit of a twist on it,” says Kenneth, explaining that there are vegetable versions and also a ham option.
In their bid to source the other ingredients needed, it was important to Kenneth to ensure that they were also produced locally and of the highest quality possible, so Greenes Farm Kitchen is sourcing its vegetables from the growers Durnin’s of Meath; the flour for the quiche is a native Irish flour milled in Kells in County Kilkenny and for the meat, Kenneth has sourced a traditional Irish cooked-ham producer.
It was last year that the Greenes set up the professional kitchen that would allow them start developing food products based largely on eggs, and it is just this year that they began production in earnest, helped by participation in the Food Academy programme.
Says Kenneth: “SuperValu is a fantastic company and it’s a great support to local producers and we were lucky in getting into the Food Academy programme and so our products have been assessed right through over the last eight or 10 months from the point of view of quality and suitability for the market.”
He particularly likes the emphasis SuperValu puts on the local requirement and the commitment to supporting Irish producers. “To get on the programme, you need to have the market researched and you need to be able to show that there is a market need for your product.”
The recipes are the work of the Greenes Family Kitchen team with the Teagasc Food Centre, which enabled them to develop something that offers good nutritional value products, high in protein and low in salt and sugars.
Another attraction for the consumer is that the frittatas need to be heated up for just 15 minutes before they are ready to eat.
“You can have them with a salad; you can have them with a side dish; you can have it for breakfast, for lunch – really any time of the day; they’re versatile. You can store them in the refrigerator for a number of days.
“They are quick and handy, but also super quality; there’s no stabilisers there’s no fortified ingredients. It’s really honest origin food.”