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Clanwood Class
I was working full time, with small kids, and I wanted some flexibility,” says Orla Clancy of Clanwood Farm. “Now, I can completely call my own hours.” Orla runs a thriving food business from the Clanwood farm in west Offaly, while husband Sean runs the beef enterprise. The farm carries suckler cows with all followers taken to beef on the farm.
Both elements complement each other, as the food business also includes their own burgers, both hot and frozen, as well as all other cuts.
For Orla, establishing an organic food business wasn’t just about cold hard cash: “While organic does give us a better selling point, I also believe in the principles - it’s not just the money.” She goes on: “I was feeding young children when we set up, and I wanted to feed them good healthy food. So the lack of sprays, of pesticides, in organic farming is particularly important to me.” Clanwood farm has been organic since 2008 and is certified by the Irish Organic Farmers and Growers Association (IOFGA), the largest certification body in Ireland. There was an economic side to this too for Sean “We wanted to produce for a market, to be less dependent on the factory and the middle men. I wanted to pay myself only, and was also aware that grants aren't going to last forever. So I wanted to be in a better position to react. There's no point in producing for grants.”
The Food Business
The food business, which grew from humble beginnings, is carried out in a dedicated food unit on the farm. There, Orla produces a range of foods from organic vegetables. They use a combination of locally produced organic field scale vegetables from growers Philip Draper and Tony Garahy and some higher value perishable produce, which they grow on their own land. “We grow some vegetables – courgettes, onions, herbs, including basil for pesto, but growers like Philip Draper are well priced for field scale. We also get some of the smaller, misshapen field scale vegetables from him at good price. They don't suit the supermarket but they are great for us.”
Along with pesto, Orla produces soups and hummus. “At the start, it was all trial and error, trying out various recipes, and doing regional markets. The once a month Shannon Harbour market – right beside us here in Offaly – has proved to be great. It’s nearly all local people who buy from us there,” she says.
During the summer, the couple hit the festivals and conferences with their dedicated food catering unit. These include the Electric Picnic in Laois and Astral Plains in Offaly. The burger is literally 100% organic, as they also use Coolfin bakery baps from just up the road in Banagher. The burger is finished off with their own tomato relish, as well as lettuce and onion from Tony Garahy.
Their produce is sold in various local outlets, with the bulk being sold to specialist shops in the Dublin area. Orla delivers one day a week to these outlets mostly in south Dublin – Cavistons, the Organic Supermarket, some Eurospars and Thomas of Foxrock. Watch out for them too at the Picnic in the Forest in Portumna, Galway, during National Organic Week.
Door To Door
Sean and Orla also sell their own meat door to door. To suit the Irish palate's preference for marbled meat, they purchased an Angus bull to sire their own continentals. “Adding the Angus has been really helpful for our business,” Orla tells me. “Limousin are great for export market, but not the Irish market. The Irish like their marbling - our customers love the bit of fat in the meat. Having a bit of fat is also great for cooking.”
Bernie Troy in Tyrellspass is their butcher. He hangs the meat for three weeks, and Orla makes her own gluten free flour mix to bind the burgers. The fillet (sirloin and striploin) do not go into the burgers, of which they get about 2,400 per animal.
Door to door struck me as unusual for direct sales, so I asked Orla about it. “We do actually go door to door, yes. We knock on doors and talk to people, as well as giving them brochures.” This has gone so well for them that 80% of their customers are repeat customers, and 20% are new.
As Clanwood farm cuts out the middle men and sells very direct, their prices are impressive - €8 per kg for mince, and up to €32 at the other end for the fillet. While occasionally there's a loss leader type special they don't even try to compete with, Orla tells me that “we are constantly watching what's available in the butchers, price wise, and try to keep our prices down to a reasonable level.” A lot of customers go for €50 boxes, and some up to €100, to get the best value.” With business going well, Sean informs me that “We'll take someone on, to do the door to door work soon. Catering is quite seasonal, so we don't want to take on one thing and neglect another. It’s best to be consistent, so a new person will do door to door, maintaining and developing the customer base. Orla will continue to go to Dublin, to maintain personal contact, and of course to make sure the best shelf space is utilised for our products.”
I asked Sean whether there will be a loss of the personal touch with the change in personnel in the door to door sales. “The new person will have a real interest, understanding and passion for organic food: this person will not just be a salesman,” he says.
The inevitable recession question arose: is Clanwood adapting or adjusting to suit new economic realities? “In the last year, mince and stewing cuts were doing very well for us. But some households do still like steak. The thing is, we're doing better now than ever. I think it may be because people aren't going out as much so they are having better meals at home. And if you buy good organic food, you don't tend to go back.”
The Home Farm
This midlands farm is very much in bog country. To help with fertility, Sean has planted excellent grass/white clover swards throughout the farm. One field is sown with red clover, which is cut for silage and fed to the finishing stock. This reduces the need to buy in expensive concentrate feedstuffs. “We have what you could call challenging conditions here – forty acres is good quality grass producing land. We use that for red clover silage for the winter,” Sean tells me.
They do sow an arable crop, but the land is not really good enough to grow grain. So Sean buys in rolled barley and beef nuts from nearby organic farmer, Pat Lawlor.
A new shed with a slatted feeding area and a solid area to the rear was recently built. In total, there are 72 animals on the holding, including calves.
Of the 256 acres, 156 are in the Organic Farming Scheme, and another 70 is in forestry. Yet another area of diversification is in egg production. “We have 100 laying Rhode Island Reds on 2.5 acres which is rotated with poultry netting. We have our own specific chicken coop and an enclosed area, 58 x 22 feet, for the night time.”
Farm Walk
The Clancys host one of the Teagasc Organic Farming Demonstration walks. Attendees at the walk got to see both the food unit and farm. I asked Sean about the 2010 walk. “We were very happy with it, in some ways it was better than expected. We were expecting a small crowd because of the time change to 2 o clock. That inevitably made it difficult for part-timers. There were about 50 people, whereas last year there was more like 100. However the people who attended went away with a lot.” Sean tells me that “the new stipulations in the Scheme have probably weeded out a lot of tyre kickers”.
There are benefits to these walks for farmers already organic, indeed for the Clancys themselves. “We also met a couple of people who opened doors as regards our catering trailer,” according to Sean. “I go to at least one every year myself – I always learn something new. There is always a lot of sharing of information. At ours, there were a lot of attendees who were in conversion or already established organic farmers. He gives an example: “there were three demonstration farmers at our walk this year.”
There are many coping strategies for the challenges farming faces now and in the future. Relying on others, from the factory price to the state subsidies, is not every farmer's idea of business security. The Clancys have found that being a food, rather than commodity, producer is helping them to not just survive, but thrive.
A Soil Association report in the UK finds that Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) offers many benefits to members,
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Discovered Clanwood soups in Cavistons of Glasthule amd so far have tried beetroot, cabbage and cheese and mushroom (favourite). We've stopped making soup as your soup is as good if not better than home-made and lots of variety. Congratulations on a first-class product and continued success.