Green Bites

Did you know that less that 5% of the apples eaten in Ireland are grown here? Most are flown from far-flung places like New Zealand, Chile and South Africa. Yet all over the country, each autumn, apples are left to rot in gardens.

This ode to the humble apple is in the company of David Llewellyn of Llewellyn's Orchard in Lusk, Co Dublin. 

"Chefs have a responsibility to choose and nurture their supply chain.  The restaurant is the showcase of a lot of other hard work that's gone on in the background, and it's important for the restaurant to showcase that work in a respectful kind of a way."

In episode nine of Green Bites, visit Michelin-starred Galway restaurant Loam, where head chef and co-owner Enda McEvoy is envisioning an indigenous Irish cuisine based on local supply chains. 

Loam is the first ever Irish restaurant to be awarded three stars by the Sustainable Restaurants Association and the first winner of Michelin's UK and Ireland sustainability award. 

Neighbourfood is the growing online click-and-collect local shopping platform that allows time-poor customers to support their local food producers.  

From five collection hubs in March to 40 all over Ireland in September: Cork man Jack Crotty, co-founder of Neighbourfood, talks about how the Covid-19 crisis has led to a boom in his fledgling business, and all the ways he hopes it will be able to support small local food producers in Ireland. 

Ireland is almost entirely dependent on imported seed for all its commercial and garden food crop seeds.  During the Covid-19 restrictions, this dependence was highlighted when both Ireland's organic seed suppliers, Irish Seedsavers and Brown Envelope Seeds, were forced to limit access to their website to ration their seeds in response to the boom in interesting in growing vegetables. 

Ellie visits both Irish Seedsavers and Brown Envelope Seeds to explore the implications of this for our food security and sovereignty. 

From smoked salmon to sushi, salmon is widely eaten and widely loved.  But wild Atlantic salmon stocks are in a dangerous decline.  Ireland plans to double its farmed salmon exports in the coming years and yet our government licensing system hangs in a 13-year stasis. 

With John Murphy of Salmonwatch Ireland and Catherine McManus of MOWI, the Norwegian aquaculture giant who produce the bulk of Ireland's organic farmed salmon, Green Bites goes fishing for the truth about the sustainability of salmon. 

Ireland produces somewhere in the region of 13% of the world's infant formula.  Research has revealed that for every kilo of formula produced, the true carbon cost is anywhere between four and 11 kilos of greenhouses gases.  Alongside Australian expert in the economics of infant feeding Dr Julie Smith, Green Bites takes a deep dive into the environmental and ethical impacts of Ireland's €1.3 billion White Gold Boom.  

Do you think a vegan diet will save the world?  This episode might make you think again.

We meet Sligo farmer and artist Clive Bright, whose 120 acre organic farm raises 100% grass-fed beef for Clive’s direct-to-customer company The Rare Ruminare. Clive has transformed his farm from standard dairy, complete with spraying and fertilisers, to the mob-grazing system he uses today, where trees play a vital role in improving his pastures.  He’s been certified organic for six years.

Clive believes a truly sustainable food system necessarily includes livestock.  In revolutionising his approach to farming, he says he's managed to insulate his livelihood against the commodity market and a food system he sees as broken.

Could YOU live on foods only grown in Ireland for a month each year? Lisa Fingleton is the author of The Local Food Project, based on her 30-day Local Food Challenge: each September she invites people to try eating only food grown in Ireland. Her partner Rena Blake is the North Kerry co-ordinator for Kerry Social Farming. Together they live on a 20 acre organic smallholding called Barna, where they try to embody the saying “be the change you want to see in the world.”

Where does our flour come from?  Can Ireland grow wheat and other milling grains? Green Bites follows the story of flour from farm to loaf with Emma Clutterbuck of Oak Forest Mills in Co Kilkenny and Cork-based baker Ben Lebon of The Natural Foods Bakery.

When Ireland went into Covid-19 lockdown, allotments were not given an exemption under food production and allotment-holders all over the country were locked out during a vital growing window.  Ellie visits Cork allotments on the day they re-open and enlists the help of Junior Agriculture Minister Pippa Hackett and food historian Regina Sexton to ask....when it comes to growing our own, has Ireland lost the plot?