O’Brien's Artisan Farmhouse Cheese Wins the 2016 Listowel Food Fair National Kerrygold Cheese Competition 

Congratulations to Jim O’Brien’s and family of O’Brien’s Artisan Farmhouse Cheese who won the “2016 Listowel Food Fair National Kerrygold Cheese Competition”. The award was presented to Jim O’Brien Saturday the 5^th November at the 2016 Listowel Food Fair - Celebration Dinner & Awards Night at the Listowel Arms Hotel.

O’Brien’s Artisan Farmhouse Cheese is located in Ballyhahill Co. Limerick and was set up in 2007. The story behind the creation of O’Brien’s Artisan Farmhouse Cheese is one that many Irish families can relate to.

“It was during the tough years of the recession that we decided to make cheese. My son John lost his job as an electrical engineer in Ireland during the recession and was forced to move to Australia to seek new opportunities. At that stage we started to looking at options to bring John back to Ireland and to the family farming business here in Limerick. We wanted to add value to the existing milk business here on the farm and we wanted to create another full time job for a member of our family. When John came back from Australia he took a six-month break from his career as an electrical engineer and dedicated his time to supporting both myself and his family in creating my vision to produce Artisan cheese.”

What makes O’Brien’s chesses unique is that they are the only farming business producing cheese from the milk of our own dairy herd in County Limerick. The O’Brien family feel this award will them enable to widen their market and gain further brand awareness on a national level for their cheese products especially their Aged Cheddar, which we use here in the hotel. We also use O’Brien’s Smoked Cheddar in our Woodlands Irish Angus 7oz Burger, which really adds a really unique flavour.

The Listowel Food Fair Nation Kerrygold Cheese Award is a very prestigious accolade to receive, the Listowel Food Fair is one of Ireland’s longest running food festival celebrating its 22^nd consecutive fair this year.

On behalf of the Fitzgerald family and the team we would like to Congratulate the O’Brien Family on this wonderful achievement.