Food & Wine magazine has ceased publication although its publisher Mr Kevin Kelly says he is still actively seeking a buyer for the title.

Mr Kelly introduced the specialist magazine in June 1997 and while it has no audited circulation figures it is thought to be around 12,000 copies per issue. The glossy publication, edited by Ms Jillian Bolger, is published 10 times a year. The magazine's staff of six were given a month's notice on Friday.

The combined July/August issue is now on the news-stands and this, according to Mr Kelly, will give him time to find a buyer without missing an issue of the magazine. The next issue is not due out until September 1st.

Rumours that the title was for sale have been circulating for the past six months but Mr Kelly officially advertised its sale last month.

He says he is talking to three potential buyers and declined to say what price he would now accept. It is thought that a price of £175,000 (€222,204) has been put on the title.

As well as its news-stand circulation, the publication has an unusually high subscription list of 2,500, which Mr Kelly says is a strong selling point for potential buyers.

"I produced a very good magazine. It just didn't work financially," says Mr Kelly who says he is unlikely to get back his investment in the title.

On why he has ceased publication before finding a buyer, he says that "what most people buy is the intellectual property of a title".

Mr Kelly is one of Ireland's most successful magazine publishers with a list of titles that includes Image, Image Interiors and the retail trade magazine Checkout.

His glossiest production is the award-winning World of Hibernia, a magazine published in New York and aimed at successful Irish emigrants.

In January last year he closed Himself, an Irish magazine for men, after two years saying the market for such a publication did not exist here. He says Food & Wine magazine was "almost too good" for the Irish market.