A dairy business set up by a Co Offaly farmer to give employment to his 14 children has evolved into a national leader in the processing of organic milk.
The Glenisk company, which is part of Tullamore Dairies established by the late Jack Cleary, now processes more than half a million gallons of organic milk annually.
According to his son, Vincent, the company has the capacity and the markets for much more organic product if the raw material was available. "My late father set up Tullamore Dairies to guarantee us some employment back in the dark days in the 1980s and to use up the milk on the farm," he says.
"That conventional business is still in place and we service Co Offaly with liquid milk, which is produced both on our farm and on neighbouring farms in Killeigh." When he returned after spending some time in Germany in the 1980s he was convinced there was an outlet for organic produce, and he persuaded his father to go the organic way.
"We began to produce yoghurts from organic milk and the only constraint on us was the amount of milk we could get," he re calls. "As a result of producing the organic yoghurt, the multiples asked us if we could produce organic milk for their shops nationwide." Vincent says the impact on the farming economy caused by the BSE crisis in 1995 convinced him that the organic route was the one to travel. "I remember at that stage a German businessman going on television there and telling the German public that he would be sourcing Irish vegetables and other raw materials for baby food. "While that was a very good plug for Ireland because the Germans equate Ireland with a very green image, I expect he got a shock when he could not get organic produce when he came here." Supplies for Glenisk are being filled by 10 farms across the Republic. Apart from the liquid milk supplies to the multiples and the yoghurts, surplus summer milk is being turned into farmhouse cheese, which is being sold at a premium in Germany.
"We also export our organic yoghurt to health shops in Britain, and for the time being we are confining those exports to the UK," he says.
Vincent says he has no doubt that many farmers will go into organic production, but it might take some time for them to change over. "We have to get that message across to the farmers, that there is a future out there and that it is probably a more secure future than conventional production." While things are now reasonably good for farmers conventionally producing raw materials, the enlargement of the EU into the former eastern bloc countries will change that. "They can produce in far better weather conditions and on far better soil the commodities that we now produce and we must start thinking ahead," he says.
He believes a major educational push is needed to convince producers to go organic. Vincent would like to hear from other organic milk producers to help enlarge the family business, which now employs more than 30 people, 17 of them on the organic side of the business.