When coffee shop owner Jim Byrne and his daughter Finola discovered how hard it was to source good quality, Irish made ice-cream for their customers, they decided to take the bull by the horns (or the cow by the udders) and make their own.
“Ireland is the second highest consumer of ice-cream per capita in Europe, behind Finland, which is surprising given our climate. Despite the fact we have the richest pastureland in Europe, 76-78 per cent of ice-cream is imported; it’s a mortal sin,” Jim Byrne says.
He and his daughter, who run the Little Italy coffee shop and ice cream bar in the Wilton shopping centre in Cork, headed to northern Italy to train with master ice-cream makers in Rimini and Bologna.
On their return in 2009, they set up Happy Days artisan ice-cream company out of a small unit in Little Island which they have since expanded.
“We are in about 50 outlets at the moment, including hotels, supermarkets and restaurants, mainly in the Cork and Kerry areas and we have just started a major attack on the rest of the country. We have just got a distributor in Belfast and will be looking to export our ice-cream as well.”
They pride themselves on offering “purely a Cork product using Cork ingredients”, and their tempting flavours include vanilla, bubblegum, marshmallow, Irish whiskey, coffee, pistachio and candyfloss.
Happy Days makes ice-creams to order, such as Cashel Blue with Pear and Walnut, for restaurants and hotels.