goosegirl

Anyone know of any fruit farms/pick your own around the waterford area. I'm going to making Jams/having a market stall hopefully when I come over and want to get the fruit as cheap as possible. Even - anyone know of any fruit/catering wholesalers perhaps for the baking supplies?

Thanks folks.

xxxxxx

taragreen

Hi GG

Dublin's fruit n veg market would be your best bet, and some towns will have a local wholesaler (who will have done the drive to Dub for you).

A lot of strawberries grown in Wexford (my aunt's entire crop are bought by chiver's jam each year).

Be aware of the regulations regarding domestic food production for sale to the public - see

http://www.fsai.ie/assets/0/86/204/3...36860593f4.pdf

and

http://www.bordbia.ie/industryservic...%20schemes.pdf

Random checks are carried out, and producers foods and records at home inspected, you will need to keep all recipts and invoices for your ingredients as I know of one small producer who started out using local ingredients, strawberries coming in at 70 euro a kilo, by second year the were using imported strawbs from china at 30 euro a kilo, but 'forgot' to take the 'locally grown' bit off their jars.... fined 30,000 euro.

If selling at car boots, will not need to apply to so many regulations, but the minute you hit the markets, you'll be saying Failte to regulations and must have a trader's licence and have your kitchen inspected.

Best thing would be to grow your own - cut out the middleman! Strawbs grow well here, you should be able to grow enough on half an acre for food production.

By the by, the market is flooded here with the home made jam - so try and make sure yours is going to be different...... Food producers spend a great deal of time determining the
unique selling proposition (USP) of their products. You will need to do the same. Establishing what differentiates your product from the competition is critical to its success in the marketplace. ‘Uniqueness’ is a multi-dimensional quality and a balancing act is required between highlighting the strongest points of difference of your product and communicating its overall attractiveness. From experience, jams etc have a tendency to be slower to attract repeat business, unlike say, sausages or things that go off in a week - how many of us have a musty old jar of jam at the back of the cupboard....

Food is Ireland's one booming export and business - it's an extremely competitive market, even at a local level. But you may just want to park your van in the layby and spend the day with a flask of tea and a pocket full of change.

good luck! Tara