THESE days you can see the nifty, neat little jars of Anne and John Brodie's Boilie cheese here, there, almost everywhere. Its high profile is a rare feature for an artisan product its seductive allure on the shelves of the multiples a rare breakthrough for a glorious food stuff which, despite its commercial profile, still emanates from the Brodies' family farm near Virginia in Co Cavan.
The clear glass and yellow and green labels which house these marvellously confected little orbs of soft cows' and goats' milk cheese are now produced on a scale which seems incredible. On each of four days per week, the Brodies and their quartet of local girls produce 50 dozen jars a day.
With an average of 10 to 12 little orbs of cheese in each jar, we are talking about 24,000 little balls of cheese being hand rolled before they are popped into their jars to be joined by smidgins of garlic and strands of fresh herbs. The lids are screwed on, the labels stuck down, and the next consignment of Boilie is ready to roll out from Virginia. It is all a long way from 1974, when the Brodies returned from England and began farming with a pair of cows and no fear of hard work.
For many years they made an aged cheddar called Ryefield, distinctively swaddled in a black plastic overcoat. Aged for four months at least, it suffered from the standard problem for hard cheeses the cheese makers money is wrapped up in the truckles for many months. It was a desire to solve this cash flow problem which led Anne Brodie to the idea of Boilie a couple of years back.
"Nobody was interested in soft cheeses as they have no shelf life. We thought if we preserved the cheese in oil this would allow it to last longer, and we experimented with cows' milk, which nobody had done before."
That simple decision unleashed a cascade of activity. Anne Brodie began selling Boilie at her market stall in Mother Redcap's Market in 1994. At Christmas time it was included in the Ryefield hampers, which were a great success. "A lot of people got it as a present," says Mrs Brodie, "and I knew when people were suddenly coming back to the market and buying it that we had a good thing."
Then everything fell into place. The Traditional Cheese Company began to stock some of the multiplies with Boilie, and one Tuesday Mrs Brodie got a call from a buyer in Quinnsworth. "Why don't we stock your cheese?" he asked. Mrs Brodie replied that they had no distributor who supplied to Quinnsworth. Two days later, Michael Horan who distributes the bulk of Irish farmhouse cheeses throughout the country, was on the phone. Suddenly, Boilie had gone from a market stall and a few specialist shops to national distribution, all in the space of a few months.
This may seem an unremarkable story, but if you scan the shelves of your local supermarket and look to see who actually produces most of the food on the shelves, you will quickly realise that most food sold comes from a small number of industrial companies who manage most of the brands we buy.
These companies spend billions of pounds developing new products, spend billions of pounds conducting market research before they dip a toe in the market, and then spend billions of pounds advertising their new foods.
The Brodies did none of this, which makes the tact that Boilie hand made on a family farm by the creators of the cheese, using their own milk and that of a local goat herd - is lined up alongside the big boys rare indeed. It is a sport of nature which has managed to find huge success without even seeming to try. Its most recent success, taking a prize as one of the best new products at the IFEX food fair, is further lionisation for a precious food.
What Anne and John Brodie have done is to patiently parade their cheese around the food fairs of the country. Last Sunday Mrs Brodie was in Ardaghin, Co Longford, handing out tastes. Two weeks before that I met her in Multyfarnham, Co Westmeath. A week before that she was in Athenry. The effect has been to create a close connection between the cheese and the people who make it. The personal touch, both in making the cheese and in selling it, has been the Brodies' secret weapon. Boilie sells because each little orb of cheese is proof of the Brodies' endeavour, their love of their work, their love of their food.
But Boilie also represents a breakthrough in that it is a pure, unmediated product, which has had to make no compromises to find its place in the market. Garden herbs and fresh milk and oil combine to make a delicious food, the cheese a delight at breakfast, delicious at lunchtime, when you can also use the oil from the jar to dress a salad.
The success of Boilie has allowed the Brodies' son Mark to join the business, and the cheese making will roll on when son Eoin takes over the farming. And so the happy jars of cheese from the happy little farm will continue to roll out from Virginia, every little jar a delicious piece of subversion to the mainstream food business, every little jar a vital conglomeralion of quality and personality.