Proof of the pudding will be in the exporting

Clonakilty black pudding is about to break into Europe from its base deep in south-west Cork.

The irony in this new departure for one of Ireland's most prized traditional foods is that the clearest threat to it for years came in the form of stringent EU regulations, suggesting there was no place for unique foods found in tiny areas of Europe.

It seemed raw-milk cheeses and foods such as Clonakilty black pudding would be bludgeoned out of existence by regulations hatched by tasteless Eurocrats. But Mr Edward Twomey, owner of Clonakilty Black Pudding Ltd, has shown he can live with such hindrances.

The Minister for Agriculture, fellow Corkman Mr Joe Walsh, announced yesterday his small manufacturing plant has been approved for exporting within the EU.

The granting of veterinary control number P780 under EU legislation would lead to increased availability of the pudding on international markets, Mr Walsh said.

It signalled the successful transition from a family-run business to a state-of the-art food manufacturing facility. "This represents the future for the Irish food industry," he said.

The future is bound-up in food traceability and HACCP, an internationally accepted system of monitoring all stages of production to ensure the highest food safety standards. But the past is most important; a recipe dating from the 1880s which Mr Twomey, in effect, bought when in 1976 he acquired Harrington's butcher shop on Pearse Street, originally Sovereign Street.

A long-serving employee who made the black pudding died shortly afterwards. It was decided to stop making it.

The only problem was that he began losing customers. "It was my first lesson in marketing," Mr Twomey said yesterday.

The business has grown rapidly since, culminating in a plant employing 25 people making black and white pudding and low-fat sausages.

Their perception was of an almost constant "threat from EU directives which raised their head" - though in latter years the EU has moved to protect Europe's most precious foods.

The other opposition not so easily appeased came from the Germans, who could not reconcile adding cereals to meat, he said. But the roughage meant a beautiful texture and, with spices, it made Clonakilty black pudding very special.