Taste the Nation: The secret behind this North Cork creamery's butter
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A North Cork butter brand is blending the old with the new to create a delicious product using traditional methods and generations of local farmers.
A farmer-owned independent cooperative, North Cork Creameries was established in Kanturk in 1928 and has been making butter for almost 100 years. Their Ór-Real Irish Butter is made using the traditional method of slow churning, with the only addition being a touch of salt.
"It’s essentially the same recipe for many decades and North Cork has a long history of producing,” says Pat Sheahan, CEO of North Cork Creameries.
The butter is made using summer milk from local, certified grass-fed cows with the same methods that have been passed down from generation to generation at North Cork Creameries.
“It has a distinctive taste which comes from our milk produced off the grass and here in Duhallow we have lots of green grass and lots of rain, but it can manifest itself in a very good quality raw material or milk product," says Mr Sheahan.
Along with 250 local family farm milk suppliers, the cooperative employs more than 100 local people directly.
“A lot of our workforce has worked with us for 40 or 45 years in the same way that our milk suppliers are two or three different generations supplying. The craftmanship and skillset attached to it have been developed and improved over the years and maintained," explains Mr Sheahan.
"From a farming point of view, the local farms are sustainable, environmentally conscious and it's local farm families that understand the product, understand their cows and understand the importance of producing a quality product, the cream of which we use then for our own butter production.”
The slow churning prcoess takes a number of hours to produce the final product and the overall process "blends the old and the new" with aspects like temperature control using more modernised methods.
As he also comes from a farming background, Mr Sheahan says he has seen the importance of community and the role that coops play in terms of supporting farmers, jobs and the local area.
Mairead Lucey is one of the 250 local suppliers. She took over the family farm in 2010 but her family has been involved in supplying milk to North Cork Creameries was first established in 1928.
For her, the “personal relationship” is important and something she remembers from her childhood is being on a first-name basis with those involved in the coop.
Ms Lucey now has five children of her own who she says love going into stores and seeing the final product that their milk has contributed to. Her hope is that the kids will also help keep up the tradition of supplying milk to North Cork Creameries.
“It really brings it home for them that they can see farm to fork really because they can see the milk coming from the cows, they know that good quality grass is important for good quality milk production, and they can actually see first-hand the stages involved in that quality milk production.”
North Cork Creameries has won a number of awards over the past number of years including Gold in the dairy butter category at last year’s Blas na hÉireann awards. It has also won the Irish Quality Food and Drink Q Awards for a number of successive years as well as medals at the Great Taste Awards in 2019 and 2020.
Their Ór-Real Irish Butter has been added to shelves across the entire SuperValu network and is now also being rolled out to Centra stores across the country.