IFA supports premises proud to serve Irish food

IT IS no longer acceptable that premises serving food are not prepared to tell their customers where the food comes from, said Pat Smith, Chief Organiser, IFA, when he recently reiterated the Association’s commitment to Feile Bia.

One thousand food outlets have now signed up to Feile Bia, whereby they undertake to serve Irish produced food. There has been a 150% increase in the number of hotels, restaurants and other centres joining Feile Bia over the past year, but the level of participation is still reckoned to be no more than 5% of the potential nationally for the scheme, operated by Bord Bia and supported by the IFA.

According to IFA, there are at least 20,000 food outlets in Ireland, all of which should be brought into the scheme.

In response to criticism that IFA had booked events into non-Feile Bia hotels, Mr Smith said, “Several meetings being held by IFA have been re-arranged over the last few months, because the venues were not signed up to Feile Bia, and some of the venues signed up as a result of events being booked, when it was pointed out to them that they were not in the scheme”.