"Love Irish Food" labelling farce.

Eliot Rosewater

I hadn't realised that Ireland had colonised Kenya.



How can you take this food label seriously when it is attached to products like coffee - made using 100% non-Irish ingredients?

Is there any label that mandates that products carrying it have to contain a certain x% of Irish ingredients? If it is enough for a product to be processed/packaged in Ireland to get the "Love Irish Food" label then I think that label has no credibility whatsoever.

the beer revolu

Well people talk of French and Italian coffee.
It could be argued that it is roasted, blended, ground and packed in Ireland.
I'm guessing that a lot of so called Irish products have no Irish grown ingredients- bread would be that springs to mind.

Voltex

Country of origin is different from country of manufactuer/packed

The Scawgeen

I was in one of the food tents at the Ploughing last year and those labels were on imported honey.

rubadub

This has come up before in the consumers forum

The "love Irish food" site says

2) Primary Ingredients must be sourced from Ireland where possible.

Some ingredients for Irish Food and Drink Brands are not grown in Ireland e.g. we do not grow tea leaves, oranges, cocoa beans, etc so these ingredients must be imported. A brand can still be eligible when its ingredients are imported as long as these ingredients cannot be sourced from ROI.

Some ingredients are only available seasonally in the ROI, or supplies may be limited and therefore it may be necessary to import replacement/additional supplies.

To which I said... Coffee could be grown here, its just not very economical to do so, that website is quite vague.

My uncle grows grapes in his garden. The fact is many companies cannot compete so simply have to find another business to get into. It is not viable to run a pineapple farm in Ireland, and I would have no sympathy for a farmer who did try and set one up and failed due to having to charge huge prices to cover his overheads. There should be no blackmailing guilt trip on people, making them feel they should buy Irish pineapples just to support a business which is clearly not viable. This "where possible" is too vague, its possible to source/grow many items here but we do not. But I suppose if it is viable there will probably be some Irish brand, but where do you draw the line, if my uncle began to sell his grapes (at a huge price) then is it recognised as being "possible", and therefore no others could be branded Irish unless grown here too.

It would be advantageous for the an Irish brand of tea to begin growing and selling coffee in Ireland, then no coffee companies could claim to be an Irish brand unless they bought from them. So as hot drinks go they would have an edge over the coffee companies.