Farm shops offer a very different choice

Located on the outskirts of the county town, The Farm Shop Wexford is a true taste of what the sunny southeast has to offer.

Inside, dark wooden shelves showcase flaxseed crackers from Isle of Crackers in Ballygarrett alongside red fruit jellies from Ballyowen Farm in Wellingtonbridge. The fridge holds creamy yogurt from Kilowen Farm and butter from Saltrock Dairy in Gorey. Crates of vegetables – parsnips, carrots and apples – add colour to the shop display, while glass jars of Wexford Sea Salt catch the light.

There are jars of golden honey from no less than three different Wexford producers: Wexford Wild Valley Honey from Taghmon, Killiane Castle Honey from Drinagh, and Wexford Honey from New Ross.

Every product has a story, and owners Paul and Joanne O’Connor are keen to tell them.

In 2021, Paul and Joanne took over what is now The Farm Shop Wexford, succeeding Kate and Ollie O’Mahoney, who had run the shop (formerly Kate’s Farm Shop) since 2005. This was their first venture into retail, having previously worked in hotel management and it came as a complete surprise to Joanne.

“It was the end of COVID and my husband came home one day and said: I was at Kate’s Farm Shop and I’ve signed the lease and we’re going to go ahead with it. I didn’t know anything,” she laughs.

The farm shop opened in March 2021 just before St Patrick’s Day.

“We started from scratch and we kept it on the same theme as before. [Kate’s Farm Shop] was a good business in a good location.”

Over the past four years, the couple have retained the shop’s reputation for high quality, while introducing new ideas and products.

Local and seasonal

The couple stock “as much local produce as we can get our hands on”, says Joanne.

“We try and have seasonal veg and fruit from a local radius so it’s not travelling for miles,” explains Joanne. “We have our Wexford strawberries in the summer from Davidstown in Enniscorthy up the road. Our potatoes are from a five to six mile radius of the shop. We have locally grown pumpkins in the autumn and in December, it’s Brussels sprouts on the stalks.”

The Wexford Food Producer Network helped the couple to identify the some 50 to 60 Wexford producers that they now stock.

“What we have in the shop is often hard to find. Many of the small local artisan producers are not in the big supermarkets,” says Joanne. “They’re really high-quality products and many have won Blas na hÉireann food awards.”

Joanne highlights some of the local producers in the shop, including Wexford Sea Salt, Wexford Preserves and Frothing Ferments.

“Wexford Sea Salt is one of the best new products to come out because you have all the Wild Atlantic sea salts but Wexford has such a lovely coast. Wexford Sea Salt harvest all their own sea water, evaporate it and produce all their salts themselves.

What we have in the shop is often hard to find. Many of the small local artisan producers are not in the big supermarkets

“Around this time of year, fermented foods are popular. We stock kimchi, sauerkraut and kombucha from Frothing Ferments, a food preserving business in Co Waterford,” says Joanne. “People tend to start afresh in the new year, so they’re looking for local honeys, horseradish, ginger.”

Salt Rock Dairy also gets a mention. They supply butter and fresh milk in reusable glass bottles from Saltrock Farm, a 70-acre farm in north Wexford.

Where farm shops used to be places to simply buy food, they have had to diversify their offering, according to Joanne.

“It’s quite hard for farm shops because the price of fruit and veg in the big supermarkets is so low. These days there is absolutely no way that you could sustain having a farm shop just selling fruit, veg and potatoes. You have to diversify, you have to try different things.”

This was one of the reasons why Joanne and Paul opened a coffee shop on site, The Cheeky Cow Coffee, in October 2023.

Joanne describes The Cheeky Cow Coffee as “somewhere that people can come and sit and have a coffee and try our local bakes, our scones, our apple tarts and our brown bread. It’s a great way for people to try the products before buying. We serve Wexford Coffee Roasters.”

Visitors can choose from a flavoursome menu made with fresh and local ingredients.

“We have our own homemade soups where we use all our vegetables from the shop. We do toasted sandwiches, but the main thing is our Wexford breakfast. We use O’Neill’s sausages and rashers and pudding and all local eggs and locally made breads.”

Some of the outdoor space beside the shop is used to host food trucks, which offer visitors a flavour of international cuisines made with local ingredients.

Eoghan’s Eats is on-site four days a week, serving tacos and burgers made from local meat. There are also pop-up food trucks throughout the year, including Mammadel’s serving South African street food and Al Wadi Falafel, an award-winning Palestinian food truck.

Although rewarding, Joanne is refreshingly candid about the challenges of running a small business in rural Ireland. The team is small; Joanne and Paul employ a manager, Eileen, who Joanne describes as “my left-hand lady and my right-hand lady”, some part-time staff, and their daughters help out on weekends.

“It takes time and it takes money. It’s very stressful and some days it can be a little bit soul destroying if you don’t get customers. Some days I think why the hell am I doing this? You’re doing accounts, purchasing, serving in the shop, washing up, you’re cleaning, you’re doing social media. You’re jack of all trades.”

Many small businesses closed their doors in 2024, and this year, Joanne is asking people to really try and support local.

“You don’t have to do huge amounts of shopping, but every little purchase helps. Buying a pot of jam, some milk, a loaf of bread. It will keep this community of small businesses alive.

“There are so many small businesses closing down, they just can’t keep going.”

“All I would ask for 2025 is for people to be mindful of small businesses. If they weren’t here, I think people would miss them greatly.

“It’s not like going in with a shopping trolley where it’s just in and out beep, beep, beep through the scanner. It’s an experience,” says Joanne. “Customers get really great quality produce, and then because we used to run hotels, we give them ideas for menus, for cooking dinner, what goes with what.

“Our customers come in and we have such a good time chatting. We have a laugh and we carry the shopping out to the car for the older people. We have a rapport now with everybody,” she adds.