[ad_1]
Abernethy Butter in Dromara, Co Down makes handmade butter supplied in top-end restaurants and exclusive grocers including Fortnum & Mason.
In a quote on the company’s website, celebrity chef Nigella Lawson says its black garlic butter “may be the best thing I have ever eaten or will ever eat”.
The products have been heaped with accolades including UK food competition the Great Taste Awards and in the Blas na hÉireann Irish Food Awards.
Advertising the sale of the business, selling agent Tim Martin described the enterprise as a “premier artisan business”.
“Abernethy Butter needs no introduction, producing and supplying the highest quality, hand churned butter to many of the UK and Ireland’s top restaurants and shops.”
No asking price has been given for the business, which the agents said was being sold due to the owners’ retirement.
They added that “the business enjoys the patronage of some of the most exclusive food retailers in the UK, and an extensive array of Michelin-starred restaurants throughout Ireland and the UK”.
They added: “The business is standalone or can be easily incorporated into a wide range of established artisan businesses to enhance their existing clientele and outlets.”
Husband and wife Will and Allison Abernethy have been running the business for around 17 years.
Their butter is produced using traditional methods that are much slower than mass-production techniques.
The butter is hand-churned and patted into its distinctive lined rolls, then wrapped in greaseproof and brown paper with the distinctive Abernethy Butter brand label.
Read more: When it comes to enhancing flavours, its a case of butter together
Their journey into top-level restaurants began when a chef at Heston Blumenthal’s famous Fat Duck restaurant in Bray in England appealed for a new butter supplier, and the pair stepped in.
In an interview with Belfast Telegraph in 2016, Allison described how the business came about.
“My father Norman Kerr had an interest in butter-churning as a hobby and he used to go around the agricultural and vintage shows to demonstrate it,” she says.
“He was ill one year so Will and I went to do it instead.
“Someone looked at it and said, why don’t you sell it instead? So it all started from there. No-one else was doing it so we just thought we’d give it a go, and we’re still the only hand-made butter retailing across the UK.”
The success the firm tasted with Heston prompted Allison to give up her day job as a nurse and join Will full-time in the dairy operation.
Other chefs followed Heston by also stocking the product, including MasterChef’s Marcus Wareing, and closer to home, Michael Deane.
Mr Deane told the Belfast Telegraph he still used the product. “It is an expensive product but that’s because Will Abernethy himself has handmade it.
“Allison is a great woman for promoting Northern Ireland cuisine and we have to support those kinds of businesses.”
He said that as it was a luxury product, Abernethy Butter was not used across all four of his venues. “But we do use it and try and give all our local businesses as much support as we can.”
[ad_2]
Source link