Meadow Fresh on a mission to convert chippers to Irish chips

Meadow Fresh Foods, a Tallow, Co Waterford business is on a mission to make sure more of the chips in Irish chippers are Irish.

At present the vast majority of chips cooked in chip shops are imported from Britain, but the business has recently set up a dedicated chipping line to provide cut chips directly to chippers across the island.

“There’s 70,000 tons of potatoes for chipping imported from the UK every year. These are potatoes that can be grown in Ireland. We are aiming to do 6,000 tons this year,” John Geary, co-founder of Meadow Fresh Foods, told the Business Post.

Meadow Fresh was founded by brothers John and Mark Geary in 1995, initially as a plan to help their father out. The company has 60 staff and primarily sells potatoes that are used for chips in the wider hospitality sector. It also sells other vegetables such as carrots and parsnips.

“I was in America and I came home in the early 1990s. My father was a potato grower, growing chipping variety potatoes. We decided we’d help him. It was always my intention to go back to America but I never did,” Geary said.

The business partners with local growers in the region to develop different styles of potatoes that are then processed and distributed to restaurants and hotels around Ireland.

“We have local growers that we work with, many of them have worked with us for 20 years. They know what we want. It’s a fresh product that we package and then goes through wholesale distributors,” Geary said.

“It has really evolved. We initially made chips for local restaurants near us, then we expanded into other vegetables. We were lucky with the timing as it was just when eating out became popular in Ireland. The company hasn’t changed a whole lot in terms of its principles, it’s about the customer telling us what they want and we do it.”

The business is supported by Enterprise Ireland, and Geary decided to engage with the agency during the Covid-19 pandemic. The loss of business for Meadow Fresh also gave Geary time and he was able to recognise opportunities where Enterprise Ireland could help the company grow. This included the development of the chipping line which is aiding its targeting of chippers.

“When the pandemic hit, 60 per cent of our business was gone overnight. All of a sudden we had time on our hands and we could stand back and look at what we were doing. Enterprise Ireland had a fund available which helped us with our expansion,” he said.

“We were lucky enough in that we upgraded the premises during that but we wouldn’t have been able to do it without their support. The pandemic could have been the best thing that happened to us because we could work out how to do things better.”

The next step for the business is to extend the shelf life of its products. Geary plans to work with Enterprise Ireland to aid in the innovation required to do that so Meadow Fresh can export to Britain.

“We’re also looking at a retail product for supermarkets. There’s a lot more potential out there. The messy process of chopping veg is something we want to take out of the kitchen, whether it’s food service or at home.”

This Making it Work article is produced in partnership with Enterprise Ireland.