Every time we sit down to plan an edition of Irish Country Living Food, we’re focused on making it an enjoyable experience for our readers. Inspiring recipes with beautiful food imagery, telling the success stories of Irish farmers, producers and chefs or giving you guidance on a lovely bottle of local craft beer for the weekend. The Irish food scene continues to go from strength to strength and we celebrate that within the pages of this paper.

However, life isn’t all daisies and roses, and the same is true in the food industry. One of the most thought-provoking pieces I focused on in this issue is a piece on the challenges facing Irish food businesses. And when I asked four Irish food producers to give me the real story on the challenges they are facing, the figures were startling. John Shine from Shines Seafood in Co Donegal told me that across the board, the price of producing his products is up by 17%. It doesn’t take a top economist to calculate the impact that has on margins.

Sarah Kelly from the Village Butcher in Ranelagh said that they hoped to take on a new member of staff this year but that monthly increases of €2,000 to €3,000 has taken a wage from someone that would have really benefited from the job. Aisling and Michael Flanagan from Velvet Cloud in Mayo are feeling the impact as a food business but also as a farm business as they produce the sheep’s milk for their products themselves. And Magaly Murray from Gran Gran Foods in Galway told me about the stress of finding glass jars to hold her produce, as up until now they have been coming from the Ukraine.

All those who I interviewed were upfront and honest about these challenges and if there is any article in this issue that I’d encourage you to read, as it shows the real story on the ground.

I’ve always been committed to supporting local and buying Irish but I am re-doubling my efforts in light of these discussions. And I know we are all concerned about the price of our supermarket trolley, as consumer editor in Irish Country Living, I really do understand that. However, although many of us can’t afford many more price increases and inflation hikes, what we really can’t afford as a nation is a broken food production system in the long term.