Fiona Deegan, Head of Enterprise Kilkenny LEO presenting the inaugural Taste Kilkenny Hero Buyers National Award to Christine Fowler, Ardkeen Quality Food Store. Photograph by Christopher Dunne

The Kilkenny 2019 Hero Buyer Awards, took place on Monday 27th of January. The awards, an initiative by the Taste Kilkenny Food Producers group acknowledges the shops, cafés, restaurants, hotels and gastro pubs that have purchased and pioneered the group’s produce in 2019.

Traditionally focused on Kilkenny outlets and eateries, for the first time a National Award category was added, and Ardkeen were thrilled to be the recipient of the inaugural award. Voting for the awards was conducted solely by Taste Kilkenny Food Producers under secret ballot.

Ardkeen was commended for their ongoing support to artisan producers and for a new initiative which sees Taste Kilkenny Hampers now available from our website. You can browse the full range of individual Kilkenny products we stock, below.

Opening the event, Julie Calder-Potts of Highbank Orchards noted; “We are really grateful to those establishments that support Kilkenny producers by having our products on their menus or on their shelves and to the customers who chose to purchase them! We are hoping to grow and strengthen this all of the time. Cafes, shops are restaurants are our link to the consumer, without their business, we would not be in business, it’s as simple as that!”  

We can add to that; that without the hard work of dedicated Irish food artisans we would not have the unique collection of high quality small batch products which allow us to stand out from the crowd both instore and online.

It was fitting to see the plaques presented, beautifully hand crafted in Kilkenny by Mark Campden of The Bridge Pottery also reflected the ethos of supporting artisans.

We look forward to forging many more collaborative relationships with Ireland's small producers in 2020.