Kilkenny beetroot business sets down strong roots with LEADER funding support

Beetroot is a vegetable that has been making a comeback on grocery store shelves in recent times.

Given its sweet earthy taste, treasured nutritional properties and sheer versatility, it’s easy to see why.

One beetroot producer leading the local charge is Helen Murphy, founder of Mooncoin Beetroot in South Kilkenny.

When Helen first started planting beetroot over a decade ago, she had no idea she was also laying down the roots for something much bigger.

“It just kind of came about from having excess beetroot in the vegetable garden,” Helen explains.

“My husband is a chef so he came up with a recipe for pickled beetroot and we ended up giving it out to friends and family.

“We got really positive feedback back from that and that’s when we thought that maybe there’s something more here.”

After sending samples for testing, Helen got HSE approval to sell the beetroot. Her first port of call was the local Centra in Mooncoin and Ardkeen Stores in Waterford.

“It was great to get the local support as well as that huge boost from Ardkeen to get us going,” Helen emphasises.

“That then gave me the confidence to apply for SuperValu’s Food Academy programme, which led to us having our beetroot stocked on shelves in SuperValu stores across the South-East.”

The need for a new purpose-built facility to handle much larger quantities of beetroot for preparing and packaging soon became evident but at the time, Helen didn’t have the financial resources.

“We were caught in a bit of limbo. We were growing as a business but hit a limit on what we could produce at home,” Helen continues.

“We just couldn’t bridge the gap to get to that next level by ourselves but thankfully we found out about LEADER funding and the difference it has made has been incredible.”

LEADER funding aims to help rural communities across the European Union to actively engage and direct the local development of their area through community-led local development.

Funding is allocated locally by Kilkenny LEADER Partnership, who are currently open to applications from small and medium enterprises - see more details HERE.

“Once we got the news that our application for LEADER funding was successful, it meant that we were able to build an industrial grade kitchen and storeroom separate to the house,” she said.

“Having a new commercial premises makes it a lot easier to increase our output, a lot easier to approach future suppliers and it also gives us that extra bit of confidence going forward.”

For Helen, the importance of funding initiatives such as LEADER cannot be understated.

“At the end of the day, it’s so important to back local. With the help of LEADER we can have our own local product processed from farm to supermarket shelves much faster than international suppliers.

“Not only does this invigorate and strengthen the local economy, but it also means that the decision to back local produce is also a more environmentally sustainable one.”

Mooncoin Beetroot is currently available in SuperValu stores across Kilkenny, Eurospar Newpark Kilkenny, Ardkeen Stores and other select retailers.

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