I’ve always had an interest in cooking. I grew up on a farm with fresh cooking and home baking but never considered it as a career. I went on to be an accountant. With my husband, I moved to the Netherlands in the mid 1990s for a few years and loved the food there. It was very multicultural and they were big into organic.
We came back because my husband got a job in Ireland, but at that point I hadn’t, so as a treat for myself I did a three month course at Ballymaloe . I adore food. It’s the first thing I think of in the morning, bar the children of course. I only did the course so that I’d be able to cook better for ourselves.
When I went back to work I used to make soups on a Friday night and sell them in the market at Midleton. Many people who work in offices are closet cooks and spend hours cooking at the weekends. That was me.
Customers at the market started asking where they could get the soup during the rest of the week, so I approached SuperValu in Midleton and that was it.
Pretty soon I gave up the day job and set up Just Food. Today our soups are in supermarkets such as Dunnes, Tesco and Supervalu and flavours include Moroccan Chickpea, Spicy Lentil and Carrot and Coriander. We have a turnover of in excess of €1 million, a staff of 14 and have just started exporting to Belgium.
I had to go over there and spend four days in four different supermarkets doing tastings last October and I was dreading it. I thought they’d all say, “Sorry, we only eat local,” but in fact the strength of Ireland’s green image was amazing.