Can home-delivered ‘fake-aways’ be a hit against the odds in rural Ireland?

Iwas at a food producers event in Donegal last week. On paper, there’s very little going for a budding food manufacturer who wants to set up in the hills of the north-west. While there are pockets of the county dense with potato growers, dairy farmers and suckler herds, there’s more mountainy sheep in the county than all of the aforementioned combined.

There’s nothing like the concentration of horticultural producers that are to be found all along the east and south coasts.

There isn’t a density of dairy output to spur on the artisan cheesemakers and there aren’t the population centres to kick-start diverse food markets that litter the cities around the rest of the country.

Yet there’s a defiance that seems to drive on a growing number of manufacturers who look past the weaknesses and still see opportunity.

Eugene Gallen is one individual who has seen the ups and downs of trying to stay afloat in the often precarious economy of small rural towns.

Despite working in food hospitality from a young age and training as a chef, a paid and pensionable job at An Post seemed to be the best bet for him back in his 20s. But he was never able to shake the urge to keep trying his luck at making it in food.

He has tried everything from running restaurants to working roadside food trucks. While Covid was good for his food truck, Eugene needed a gig that allowed him spend a bit of time in the evenings with his growing family.

So three years ago, he started putting all his money into building a ready-meals businessBon Appetit. Despite the talk at the peak of our lockdowns that everyone was ‘rediscovering’ the joy of cooking from scratch, Eugene knew what we all know deep down — humans are hard-wired to take the road of least resistance.

Since Covid has melted away into the background, everyone has found themselves just as time-poor as they were before the pandemic struck in 2020.

Sure, many have the option of working from home a few days a week, but there are still kids to bring to training, there are meetings and evening classes to attend, and life barrels along once more.

The biggest difference between now and then is that pre-Covid, a take-away for some families was a weekly no-brainer at €40-€50, whereas today, it’s pricey enough at €60-€75.

This has driven the growth of the fake-away: the ready meal that is so good, it matches anything you could get in your local take-away, but at a fraction of the price.

Twenty years ago, when you mentioned ready meals, many envisioned having to reconstitute dehydrated potato powder beside a stodgy lump of indescribable meat and rubbery veggies.

But the industry has progressed so much that it is now able to deliver restaurant-grade grub in a package. Part of this is down to the scientific approach of manufacturing.

The building Eugene has just moved into was previously used by a medical device manufacturer. As a result, all the air that comes into the building is filtered and treated for bacteria.

The containers the food is packed into are gas-flushed to remove oxygen and further extend the shelf-life. It has evolved to such an extent that Eugene can offer to put a week’s worth of ready meals into an insulated box, put the box in a courier to send to the other end of the country, and the recipient can munch their way through the contents over the following seven days without a care in the world about best-before dates.

And while some may scoff at frittering away money on prepared meals, the statistics show that for smaller one- and two-person households, buying ready meals is one way to significantly cut the amount of food waste from fruit and veg and meat that goes off before it is used.

Interestingly, Eugene is focusing on meals with an Asian twist — tikka masala, honey chilli chicken, noodles and curries dominate the range.

This isn’t because he is targeting recently arrived emigrants or niche sections of society. He simply looked at what Irish people ordered most from his time in restaurants, cafes and take-aways. Rather than getting lost in notions that Irish people want traditional this or that, he simply followed what he’d seen on the street.

From a standing start, he is now making 6,000 meals a week and aiming to grow to 25,000. And he still gets home in time to bring his kids to training. Now that’s what I call a success story.

‘From a standing start, Eugene is now making 6,000 meals a week and aiming to grow to 25,000’