It’s Farm to Table to Farm for Master Chefs as they plant the next business chapter at their 20 acre Farm
It is Farm to Table to Farm for Master Chefs, one of Ireland’s only privately owned large nationwide catering companies. The award winning company begins its first vegetable and crop planting on its 20 acre farm in Co. Limerick. Ultimately planting the next chapter of the Master Chefs sustainability strategy, Pat O Sullivan and his culinary team get closer to realising their ambition of a carbon neutral and zero waste business.
Pat O Sullivan founder and CEO of Master Chefs purchased the 20 acre farm in 2021 with the vision of growing, harvesting and supplying all of the Master Chefs outlets and events nationwide with their own organically grown vegetables, crops and salad ingredients. In addition, the Master Chefs farm will also be the base from which all Master Chefs food waste will be composted and replenished back into the soil. Thus delivering on the ethos of farm to table to farm for the ambitious catering company.
The farm, located in Ballyneety, Limerick has been tilled & fertilised in recent weeks. Now ready for planting, the seed drills are set to sow the organic plants which have been propagated in nearby Tipperary. This first phase of planting will yield growth of a range vegetables including carrots, parsnips, turnips, broccoli, kale, leeks, cabbage and potatoes, all of which will supply Master Chefs central production kitchen and its food outlets nationwide.
These intrinsic developments on the farm will bring the pioneering events catering company ever closer to its core ambition of being a carbon neutral, zero waste business, serving much of its own home grown ingredients across all menus.
Renowned for its high quality food and service, Master Chefs has been setting the highest standards in catering for almost three decades at Ireland’s largest sporting, education, healthcare and corporate events throughout its multiple outlets across the country. Pat O Sullivan, his executive chef Michelle O’Donnell and the 160 proud team of chefs and hospitality professionals are now in the unique position of creating mouth-watering, nourishing and exciting menus centred on their homegrown ingredients for all of their events and valued clients nationwide.
“We’re so excited and inspired to have reached this milestone in Master Chefs,” says founder and CEO, Pat O Sullivan, “our vision has always been to serve the ultimate food menu to all of our clients with the freshest and best quality ingredients. Now with our own farm we can watch our crops grow organically and be 100% confident that we’re serving the absolute best to our clients. It’s always been our ambition to be at this juncture and it also solidifies our strategic objective of being a closed circle carbon neutral, zero waste business, we grow, compost and fertilise which makes Master Chefs very unique”.
Executive Chef Michelle O’Donnell who’s led the Master Chefs food team for over a decade is thrilled to be part of this new chapter in the company’s growth. “I’m now in the unique position of creating seasonal food menus from our very own Master Chefs organic farm which I know will deliver mouth -watering flavours and optimum nourishment to our customers. This is an entirely new way of food menu planning and preparation for us and I’m seriously excited to go to the farm to pick our fresh vegetables on a daily basis”
Essential farm infrastructure has been put in place from water, electricity supplies, to road access as the Master Chefs Team get busy planting while bringing features of the food production and composting plants to life in parallel with achieving organic farm certification.
In the final for National Food Hero in the 2023 Restaurant Association of the Year Awards on Monday 15th May next in the Clayton Hotel on Burlington Road Pat will attend the Irish Restaurant Awards with his sights set on winning the title of National Food Hero in Dublin, having been awarded Limerick’s Local Food Hero earlier this year. “I myself worked as a chef from my early teens until I stepped into the business side, I absolutely love what I do and the development of the farm is another milestone on our journey. We have an insatiable drive to always be the best,” says Pat O’Sullivan
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