As the organic movement matures, the next organic generation emerges to take up the reigns.
Kitty Colchester is Ben and Charlotte's daughter. The Colchesters have a c.200 acre organic holding near Urlingford in Kilkenny called Drumeen farm. They have had this as an organic farm since the mid 1970s.
(photo LtoR Eileen Bentley Bord bia; Kitty Colchester and Minister for Food Trevor Sargent)
A central part of the organic movement since then, their mixed farm has cattle (mostly Angus) sheep, poultry, turkey, honey and forestry. They also grow their own feed, which is where the idea for the Happy Heart Oil came along.
So now, this JFC award winner and Teagasc organic demonstration farm has another feather in its bow.
Daughter Kitty's Happy Heart organic rapeseed oil is divine, really sustainable and perfectly affordable, retailing as it does from between E5.50 and E6 for 500ml. Winner in the sustainability category at the Bord Bia National Organic Awards this year, its easy to see why.
The taste is exceptionally fresh, due to the fact that it is pressed each week on the farm. In fact, all the work is done on the farm.
Ben Colchester had been growing rapeseed and pressing it for the protein feed by product it yields to feed the chickens and turkeys. This created an opportunity for Kitty:
Over to Kitty:
�I'd been in in sales, but after doing aid work in Africa for a year, I didn't want to go back to that � I was more interested in doing something on the farm. The oil was an obvious choice�.
Having done some research into the nutritional benefits of rapeseed oil, Kitty started pressing, labelling and bottling earlier this year. The oil has been a huge hit so far.
�Most oil available in Ireland comes in from southern Europe. Its usually about 3 to 4 months old by the time the customers get it, whereas I press weekly�.
Both the nutrition and the taste of the oil improves because of this.
Three times a year, 300 or so customers come to the farm to collect their large organic food orders: They sell freezer portions, including half and whole beef and lamb animals, butchered to customers' requirements.
For the birds �we do three batches - chicken in June and in September, and then a Christmas Turkey run. We kill about 1500 animals here on our on farm abattoir each time. In June, the oil was also available to the customers, they tried it and they all bought some�.
Since then, the distribution base has expanded. The oil is available from Duncan Healy's Organic Delights stalls at Farmers' Markets on the east coast, at other mostly regional farmers' markets including Clonmel, in some regional box schemes, and in various retail outlets in Dublin, Tipperary, Cork, Wicklow and Offaly.
�The rapeseed is rotated every 3 to 4 yrs; we grew 11 acres, but went up to about 20 acres this year. We get 10-15 tonnes, and a tonne give about 600 bottles. Next year's plan was to double, but that's been delayed by a year.�
Delayed. That's a euphemism.
�We won the award for best sustainable product, sales and feedback were going really well, and then we had a fire. I lost the whole crop.�
Disaster. Despite being encouraged to buy oil in for the year, Kitty decided not to. �No, I want to do something different, something 100% Irish and traceable. Buying in and then changing back to my own oil next year would be too confusing for the customer�.
Luckily, her overheads have been low � she does the pressing, bottling and labelling herself, so the crop loss hasn't been as costly as it might have been. Also, she has enough stock left to keep for the farm sales and to �dribble out over the year�.
In the intermittent period, she will work on branding, labelling and other marketing-related areas.
But watch out for the limited supplies of this year's 2009 vintage: it will be much sought after. And here's to a happy and healthy growing, pressing, and bottling experience for Happy Heart oil from now on.
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