Jimmy’s rissoles going nationwide!
FLICKING through the catalogue of German supermarket giants Aldi, you may have come across a familiar face in recent weeks. The beaming smile of Wexford’s Jimmy Barry is spread over two glossy pages as he bids to take the beloved Wexford rissole nationwide.
As part of the Grow with Aldi programme, Jimmy is among 48 food producers nationwide seeking to get a lucrative supply contract with the German chain’s 142 Irish stores nationwide. Having been selected from nearly 250 applicants, Jimmy’s Rissoles have now hit the shelves nationwide as part of the ‘Grow With Aldi’ campaign. Should this run go well, the hope is that the rissole will become a treat of choice nationwide, not just in the model county.
Pulling this run off required a marathon effort, even by Jimmy’s high standards. Operating from their new unit at Fahy’s Cross in Ardcavan, Jimmy and his right hand man Paddy Conway roped in a few family members and, between them, over the course of five days, they mashed 1.4 tonne of potatoes by hand before manufacturing 36,000 rissoles ready to be shipped nationwide.
While most of us would take some time to bask in that achievement, Jimmy is not one for resting on his laurels and as he speaks with trademark infectious enthusiasm, he is travelling back to Wexford from Bray, where he has just dropped another batch of his product at a supermarket.
‘It was absolutely brilliant to get through to this stage with “Grow with Aldi”,’ he said. ‘We’ve supplied over 4,000 packs and by the end of June we should know if we’re getting a contract to supply Aldi regularly. If we were to win the contract, we’d have to go to automation though and we’d have to take on another three or four people. But that’s what we’re working towards.
We’re looking to grow.’
While Jimmy initially started supplying his now infamous rissoles to Pettitt’s in the ’80s, he took a break from it for a number of years. When he was made redundant from his job as a deli manager in a local supermarket, he trained as a chef with Fáilte Ireland before striking out on his own once again. He now supplies approximately 15 Tesco stores, 15 SuperValu stores and six Dunnes’ Stores supermarkets from Waterford up to Bray and, whether the Aldi deal comes off or not, he has his eyes set firmly on expansion.
‘I’m a bit of a workaholic,’ he laughed. ‘It is a labour of love though. On an average week at the minute we’d get through half a tonne of potatoes and we’d be producing around 2,000 packs per week. You’d be doing 12 hour days. I’d always arrive at 5 a.m. and it could be 5.30 p.m. or even 6 p.m. when I get in home. Then sometimes you’d have to go back and do some packing. We pride ourselves on that 24-hour turnaround and getting the product to the shelves as fresh as possible.’
‘When the supermarkets shout, you have to react,’ he said. ‘I could often get a call at night from a supermarket saying that they’ve no product left on the shelves and you just have to get back in there, get to work and get them out within the 24 hours. I love what I do though and I would never complain.’
With Jimmy’s Rissoles now on the shelves in Aldi, it’s a waiting game to see how things progress and whether they prove to be a hit.
‘The feedback has been really good initially for a little product from Wexford,’ Jimmy said proudly.
‘We’ve had people from around the country delighted that they can get their hands on them. I suppose it’s something like the Blaa in Waterford and we’re looking to bring the humble rissole to the rest of the country.’