When Monaghan farmers Mark Gillanders and Micheál Rafferty made the decision to set up the Irish Organic Mill to start growing wheat and milling it for the Irish market, they were met with scepticism.
“People thought we wouldn’t be able to meet the protein level that was needed for milling wheat because of the Irish climate,” Gillanders, who farms 55 hectares (135 acres) in Ballinagall, told the Irish Times this week.
Today, a locally-supplied source of milling wheat is more of a topic of conversation following rapidly growing concerns about wheat supplies after the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Illustrating the shortages, the Hageberg standard - the metric which decides which wheat is suitable for human consumption, and which should go for animal feed - was lowered, even before Vladimir Putin’s troops entered Ukraine,
Fluctuating markets due to the heightened tensions around Ukraine caused wheat prices to rise well before Christmas, but this situation will certainly get worse.
Gillanders and his business partner, Rafferty, see it as another sign of Ireland's dependence on outside imports, since almost all of Ireland's 230,000 tonnes of milling wheat is imported, usually from the United Kingdom or France.
Consistent demand
More than a year ago, the pair set up one of the State’s few organic flour mills to sell directly to consumers. The Irish weather, coupled with the infamous “stony, grey soil” of Monaghan, meant that many doubted their plans.
So far, however, the demand has remained consistent with a number of high-profile clients, including the Happy Pear. Customers like buying Irish and they like seeing the farmers behind their product, he says.
“It has been hard to compete on price. Our best price to the bakeries would still be a third more than some of the English organic flour coming in, but we don’t have the food miles.
“We do have a difference in taste that we think would be superior. If you’re making bread with it there is deeper taste,” he says, adding that the bread made with their flour has “umami” flavour – savoury, to most of us.
Praising the help received from Monaghan's Local Enterprise Office, Gillanders believes the Ukraine war is a wake-up call: "The day Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine the price of wheat went up €56 a tonne," he says.
“I’ve noticed that bakeries and a few others are a wee bit keener to talk to us in the last while but we have been working hard to break into the market,” he said, adding that despite the fresh interest they will remain fair to buyers.
“We don’t intend to put up our prices. We’re still new to the market and bakers don’t change too easily, they have their set recipes and custom so we don’t want to upset them.”
