Clonakilty Food Co brings it all back home to West Cork
The new custom-built €7m Clonakilty Food Company factory officially opened in the West Cork town, the culmination of more than a year’s construction work and the realisation of a dream for the Twomey family.
Eighteen years ago, production of the world-famous black pudding and the company’s other products switched to a facility in Little Island outside Cork City.
That had marked yet another chapter in a story that began back in the 1880s when Joanne O’Brien first began making the black pudding for the butchers on what became Pearse St in Clonakilty, and led up to the purchase of the former Harrington’s shop by the late Edward Twomey in 1976.
It went from a one-morning-a-week sideline in the butcher’s shop, via a tale of peeled onions and soaking oats to a situation where the family could barely keep up with demand.
The brand’s reach has continued to grow, with products in the UAE and US, while celebrity fans, such as Liam Horan of One Direction, have declared their love for the humble Clonakilty sausage.
The singer wasn’t there yesterday but hundreds of others were as the company held an open day from 1pm to 7pm to mark its coming home party.
Clonakilty Food Co has continued to make and sell small batches of its products at its butcher’s shop in Pearse St, but the new factory — which will have a visitor centre that will open next year — is a fulsome return to base.
Chief executive Colette Twomey said: “Why Clonakilty? Because Clonakilty is the heart, the soul, the pulse of everything.”
The official opening was performed by another local, Tara McCarthy, chief executive of Bord Bia, who admitted her children would eat their own body weight in assorted Clonakilty products.
She pointed out that a third of the domestic black pudding market is accounted for by the Clonakilty version, with similarly impressive market share for the white pudding and aforementioned sausages.
And for those who can’t get enough of both, the latest product off the production line is black pudding sausages.
Ms Twomey thanked all those who, in years past, threw the roll of black pudding into the suitcase as they set off on their travels, calling them the company’s “first ambassadors”.
It was standing room only inside the facility, which will operate on a dual licence with the Little Island factory until everything switches over to Clonakilty this side of Christmas.
Ms Twomey, Ms McCarthy, and Clonakilty mayor John Loughnan made their speeches before the ribbon was officially cut at the front door after a short hunt for the scissors, a massive butcher’s utensil that looked like it could cut bone but still needed a few goes before trimming the ribbon.
Around 50 people will begin working in the facility and more will switch across when it becomes fully operational. Ms Twomey said more ideas are being worked on and that in the food business “there is no such thing as a half standard”.
