Company History and Background

Founded: 1997

Glenilen Farm is a dairy based business in Drimoleague, West Cork, owned and run by Alan & Valerie Kingston on their rural family Farm. A brief history of the early days of Glenilen Farm started at selling homemade products at Bantry Country markets in 1997. Valerie, Bsc Food Science and technology UCC 1991, had previously worked at Dairygold in R&D 1991-1995 and then spent 18 months in Burkina Faso West Africa on a dairy development project before returning to Ireland. With this background and a passion for good wholesome tasty food she began making soft cheese, yoghurts, butter and desserts in the farmhouse kitchen which was the beginning of the Glenilen Farm story. A key milestone for Glenilen came in 2008, with the opening of a state-of the art 10,000sq foot production unit adjacent the family farm- in order to keep up with the growing demand and popularity of the range in key Independents, local SuperValu’s and Dunnes Stores. A listing with Tesco also followed which as a result led to direct central distribution to all the key Multiples in Ireland. Following this in 2013- Glenilen commenced serving a number a Specialty stores in London (Harrods, Selfridges, Whole Foods etc.) which over time has led to serving a number of the larger UK customers such as Waitrose, Booths and Ocado. Over this relatively short period of time, Glenilen Farm have picked up several allocates and awards along the way-such as, The Caterer Product Excellence Award UK, Prepared Foods Agri-Business of the Year Award 2015, Irish Food Writers Guild, Bridgestone Award and Euro-Toques Ireland Food Awards to Name a few.

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