For ten years now I have been a food consultant to the Ardkeen Quality Foodstore here in Waterford.
This is a really delightful shop, it was originally started by Robbie Jephson as a pair of petrol pumps down from their house on the Dunmore road about forty years ago.
It then expanded into a garage shop and then gradually grew into what it is today; a full sized supermarket, but one with a difference.
Because it is a totally independent outlet the family (Robbie’s son Colin now runs the store) are not dictated to by any principal of central buying but make a lot of their purchases locally. They have always had a very strong deli section so, when they decided to expand the shop to make it a full sized supermarket ten years ago, I was delighted to be asked by Colin to design a range of ready prepared meals, prepared by chefs in the shop, to be sold fresh and chilled to the people of Waterford.
This has turned out to be a huge success and today, even though now sandwiched between a Tesco and a Lidl, Ardkeen is holding its own.

I was delighted when I got a mail from Angeala Flannery, a reporter on the new RTE food programme; “Corrigan Knows Food” telling me that they were interested in doing a piece about quality ready prepared meals and to feature the Ardkeen in this.
This all came to a head yesterday when the team from RTE arrived at the store to film this piece.
They came fresh from Myrtle Allens grandchildren’s “Cully and Sully’s” operation in Ballycotton and their intention was to do a similar piece (about 7 minutes) on the Ardkeen and then follow this up with a tasting session on the quay in Waterford in which the public would vote on which of three Fisherman’s Pie’s they preferred, ours, Cully and Sully’s and one made by Angeala.

All I had to do was to stand by the food chill while they tracked the camera to me ( I imagine this will be about 10 seconds of film on the tele) and then conduct the interview with Angeala.
After I had stood for about 20 minutes on a precise spot on the floor while the tracking shot was repeated about forty times, and my look of serious gravity became closer and closer to a manic and sinister rictus, that part of the exercise was completed.
In the meantime one half of Waterford were standing out of the range of the camera making personal remarks about this idiot (“He’s put on weight hasn’t he)

The interview itself was a much easier affair to do and, even though I feel I may have burbled rather a lot (like nature I abhor a vacuum and will always try and fill it with talk) the director and crew were kind and took off the tape for editing and airbrushing in the studio.

The whole process took about two hours to film and for most of this I was standing stiffly in one position in the middle of a busy supermarket unable even to move my head in case I ended up casting the wrong sort of shadow on my face.
There was very little glamour.

The director and the crew couldn’t have been nicer and the interviewer was like an old friend by the time we finished.
The shoppers I think saw it as Martin Dwyer grasping at yet another opportunity to expose himself.

As for the result of the taste test on Waterford’s Quays?
To answer that you will have to watch the programme when it is aired at the beginning of June.