We spoke with a variety of agri start-ups and early-stage food business that we met at the 2024 Ploughing Championships, from the latest amazing tech to food businesses packing amazing flavours.
At the Ploughing Championships 2024, it was clear the significance of the show – dubbed Europe’s largest outdoor event – with more than 200,000 visitors and 1,700 exhibitors – was very obvious.
With areas dedicating the latest farm machinery to everything else including banking, clothing and everything else in between, we decided to pay a visit to where young businesses who in time will be future job creators across rural Ireland were congregating.
Growing Irish agritech businesses
First of all we went to the Enterprise Ireland Innovation Arena at the Ploughing Championships where we met with Fiona Kelleher of MyGug, a Cork business that is pioneering innovation in food waste management with a machine that turns food waste into a clean, renewable source of cooking energy.
Proving that the entrepreneurial spirit is strong in our younger generations we spoke to teenagers Katy Jennings, Mary Lillibeth Curryglynn and Nicola Corcoran of Herdsync who are on a mission to empower farmers with informed herd management.
We next met Nicola Corcoran of HorseSource, a business that is hellbent on reducing the paperwork required for registering horses and changing ownership.
Marts have been at the heart of farming life for a long time but that’s about to change as Kevin O’Connor from Farm Fayre is digitalising the way farmers sell cattle, allowing them to do it securely and directly by cutting out the middle man.
Next we met Jeff Lyons from Watt Footprint, a young business focused on making real energy savings for small businesses.
Jessica Moneley from Supersoil, an Irish business that has developed an organic fertiliser that offers a realistic alternative to using chemicals.
Food for thought
After the Innovation Arena we visited the Local Enterprise Office Village where a variety of young, rural businesses from food to stone sculpture were demonstrating their wares.
We met Andrea Bustos and Andrew Brady from Garnacha – which means street food in Mexico – who is on a mission to prove that salsa has more uses than for simply dipping your chips into, and urges people to consider using it as a cooking sauce. Having tried her peanut-based salso we had to buy a few jars.
In another move that could revolutionise dining, Shannon O’Reilly and Kevin O’Regan from Trust Dish demonstrated how their platform enables people to communicate with food venues in advance to ensure that people with allergies could be safely catered for.
Karen Rotherham from Skillet & Spice spoke about how her young food business is spicing up the shelves of Irish supermarkets, creating seasonings that buyers will find irresistible. My personal favourites were the jalapeno and Italian blends.
Speaking of flavour Aymar Gourdet – aka The Skinny Chef – told how he took popular sauces, soups and pestos from his Kildare restaurant and put them on supermarket shelves. My particular favouroite was his wild garlic and chilli sauce.
Having spent time in the distilling business in the United States, Oliver Guirke from Fore Distillery has brought his learnings home to Ireland in the form of a fantastic range of rums and poitin drinks.
And finally we spoke with Liam and Dani Kavanagh, the husband and wife team that are the driving force behind Cruach Design, an innovative business that is creating amazing garden sculptures from metals.
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