If there’s one group of people I really admire, then it’s those who, despite all the difficulties, have the courage to set up their own businesses. It takes real guts to put hard-earned money and substantial borrowings on the table and take a chance at doing something new. Many of them are people who attempt to do more with their milk, beef, eggs or indeed family recipes.

I’m thinking of the likes of Margaret Farrelly and her Clonarn Clover free-range eggs. Margaret started out with 150 hens in 1987 and now she has a business with a turnover in excess of €6.5m with a huge expansion planned for the next two years. I bought a dozen hens that same year, but never saw the opportunity. I can only imagine that many of you reading this are the same as myself.

Or take Valerie and Alan Kingston, dairy farmers from Drimoleague who didn’t take long to realise when Valerie’s cheesecakes were so popular at the farmers’ market that there was scope to expand and so Glenilen was born.

Over the past 30 years we’ve been blessed by the cheese makers who are bringing quality Irish food to the attention of consumers not just here in Ireland but further afield. In many ways, they have been the leaders in this small business revolution and their success has encouraged others to follow suit.

This week, we profile Kay and Paddy Cooney, who just over a year ago built a production unit on their dairy farm to make Derg, a raw milk cheddar cheese (page 12). It isn’t as if Kay and Paddy haven’t enough to do already – she’s a nurse and he is a dairy farmer – but they wanted to do something extra to secure the farm for the next generation. Demand for their cheese already far outstrips supply, and who knows in five or 10 years’ time what this new business will have achieved.

I’m in my 10th year as editor of Irish Country Living and over all that time we have made it a core editorial pillar to profile these wonderful entrepreneurs.

One of the businesses we profiled early on was Pat Whelan of James Whelan Butchers in Clonmel. Last year Pat was crowned supreme champion at the UK’s prestigious Great Taste Awards. He beat off 10,000 competitors to take the title for his beef dripping. This year’s awards were held on Monday night and in what was an amazing achievement, Ireland once again beat all comers to take the supreme champion award. This time the winner was Peter Hannan, a butcher from outside Moria in Co Down, who won with his Glenarn Shorthorn 4 Rib Roast. We have also profiled Peter on these pages.

Congratulations also to Dunnes Stores which won the Golden Fork from Ireland, which is sponsored by Bord Bia. It won for its Simply Better Irish Handmade All Butter Sticky Toffee Pudding. It is made for Dunnes by Catriona and Rory Flaherty from Kilmessan, Co Meath. Now there’s another great small business just waiting to be profiled. Congratulations to all. Finally, if you’ve always wanted to check out MacNean, Neven Maguire’s multi-award winning restaurant, see our competition on page 19.