Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Tuesday, 31 March 2015

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation

Female Entrepreneurship, Women in Tech Industries, Skills Needs and Balanced Regional Development: (Resumed) Discussion

1:30 pm

Ms Colette Twomey:

Bord Bia held our hand throughout the process. We were given a mentor and when we went to look at the broader UK market the first thing we did was to meet our mentor over there. We did an on-the-ground survey. People in the UK did not know where Clonakilty was. They did not know it was a place. White pudding was alien to them. Bord Bia helped us with our packaging. We boxed our product, put the story on the packaging, and even included a guide to what thickness to cut the pudding. These were all practical suggestions about everyday things that we took for granted, but our mentor was an ex-Sainsbury buyer and we could ring him day or night. Likewise for the fellowship programme in Australia, Bord Bia was just superb.