70 years of fine fresh food at Tony Kieran’s
THIS month marks the 70th anniversary of the opening of Tony Kieran Limited. The then new fish and poultry shop in Church Street was started by Tony and May Kieran in October 1947 in what was the Temperance Hotel which closed down to make way for what is now one of the town’s longest family run and thriving businesses.
It quickly became established as a favourite place of call to do the food shopping for fresh and tasty chicken and fish and has retained that reputation all down the years while increasing the choice to a full range of meat products to successive generations of customers.
Today the business is run by Anthony Kieran and Seamus Spaight. Anthony’s father Ted took over managing the business at a young age from his father Tony and expanded the thriving business and is still involved today.
Anthony is son of Ted, and Seamus is Ted’s son- in-law, and they have overseen the further expansion of the business and given it a new direction.
Key to how the business has been sustained is adapting successfully to the changes over the years in the food and hospitality market and above all to the needs and demands of their loyal customers without whose continued custom and support the business could not have grown and thrived in the manner it has, offering a retail and wholesale service to the wider Dundalk region.
The retail business still operates from Church Street, guided as ever by the desire to provide quality Irish product at the right price. If you don’t believe that, go and see yourself.
The company caters for an ever growing wholesale trade from a custom built plant at Coe’s Road, supplying hotels, restaurants, takeaways and retail outlets and butchers across the north east. This facility gives the company the option to prepare more chicken products for the market place.
A new dimension was added to the business in October 2010 when Tony Kieran opened a state of the art butcher shop on the Avenue Road, boasting a top of the range Dry aging unit ensuring your meat is succulent and tender every time.
The shop quickly won recognition and kudos. For in the second year of trading the shop was included in the Top 100 retail outlets in the country and won the Best Customer Service accolade in the Louth Business Awards.
In keeping with its determination to provide customers with the very best quality of produce, the company started killing beef from Seamus’s family farm. “We can stand over the quality of our beef, killing only the premium breeds at a young age ensuring customers are 100 % satisfied every time”, says Seamus.
The Spaight family farm has a long tradition of providing local butchers with premium Beef. The farm located in County Meath is Board Bia Certified ensuring only the highest standard of animal welfare.
Seamus explained “to meet our goal we work diligently to source the finest quality produce you can Buy- each one hand selected for our shops. Our beef hangs on the bone for a minimum of 14 days followed by seven days in the state of the art ageing unit ensuring its meat reaches the highest standard.”