When I heard that Glanbia was closing its Kilmeaden Cheese Plant and going to move all production to Kilkenny I was horrified.
Kilmeaden, marketed with a certain amount of justification, as the “Fillet of Cheddar” is an extremely impressive product.
In my youth the only “cheese” which was produced and available in Ireland was the over-processed, rubbery and tasteless “Golden Vale”or the same in white “Calvita”.

When Veronica Steele started to produce her “Mileens” in the late seventies she started a revolution in the cottage cheese industry in this country (and indeed she initiated a similar revolution in England and even America)
The creameries weren’t slow to see that there was now created a market for a quality cheese product and quite a few did manage to come up with the goods.
Our own local effort was “Kilmeaden”
These things don’t come easily and it was the product of many years of research and development and most importantly co-operation between the cheese makers and the local farmers .
That they have succeeded in producing an unique quality product is evident from not only the higher price they are able to demand (over four times that of standard commodity cheese) but also in their prize winning ability, winning Gold and Bronze at the world cheese awards in 2005.

As the French have known for centuries a successful food product is always integrally linked to the area in which it is made.
They call this a product’s Terroir.
Glanbia have refused to believe in this concept.
In 1998 they moved the production of Kilmeaden to Ballyragget in Kilkenny, there, even when using the Kilmeaden cheese makers, they discovered that they couldn’t replicate the quality of Kilmeaden.
They haven’t learned from that.

When I heard that the creamery was moving I made an impassioned plea for its retention on my food slot in the local radio station WLR.
My points were that there is no way the French would permit shifting the production of its Roquefort to -, for instance- Toulouse, or that the Italians would happily up sticks and start producing Parmesan in Naples.
There are so many reasons why these products have developed their unique character in their own Terroir.

As a result of my piece on WLR I was asked by a farmer friend of mine to speak to the Minister of Agriculture should they persuade her to visit.
Today was the day she was persuaded to attend a meeting of the various people who were interested in some way retaining Kilmeaden as a viable creamery and I dutifully attended.

Not quite dutifully as it turned out.
Due to nothing except my own profound stupidity I got the time wrong and was ushered into a meeting which was well under way.
Far from being a casual “come and have a chat with the minister” occasion it turned out to be a fairly formal board meeting with not only the Minister of Agriculture, Mary Coughlan, present but also our own Martin Cullen, Minister of Transport, Senator Brendan Keneally, the head of Enterprise Ireland and a director of Bord Bia among various luminaries.
I had hardly sat down when the chairman asked “The Late Comer-chef Martin Dwyer” to say a few words.
Thank the lord I was sufficiently together to speak, and I think (says he modestly) I spoke quite well.
I made the points I had made on the radio but also managed to make some about product integrity and uniqueness that made sense.
I won’t say I sat down to universal applause but both Ministers referred to my input as they summed up, and, both the chairman, and Martin Cullen shook my hand to thank me after the meeting.
So there the matter stands, both ministers were off to see the Board of Glanbia, armed with all that was said at the meeting.
It would be my hope that if Glanbia don’t see their way to reopen the plant at least they might release the name Kilmeaden to another cheese producer in Kilmeaden itself and so permit a product which has achieved not only national but international recognition to survive.

There aren’t sufficient food names of quality in Ireland that we can afford to let any of them die.