Glasson food producer: An interview with Kevin Fenton

A new local food item, porridge oats from Glasson, went on sale for the first time at the inaugural Athlone Food Feastival last month.

The oats were the second product to emerge from Glasson Farm, a start-up business established by local man Kevin Fenton. The company had already been producing bottles of rapeseed oil, and it’s now supplying its products to a number of shops and restaurants in Athlone, Glasson and Moate.

Bringing the business to this stage has been very much a family effort. Kevin and his wife Joan have a daughter, Chloe, who created artwork that is used on the bottles of rapeseed oil.

The Ballykeeran native also spoke about the invaluable assistance provided by his Dad, David Fenton, the former director of Athlone IT.

“Dad looks after pretty much all of the planting, seeding, and farming aspect. I won’t say he’s retired – he’s probably busier than he ever was – but he’s been a great help in terms of assisting when I’m not there,” said Kevin.

The former Marist College student set up the business in addition to his ongoing work in the field of engineering, where he is a director for Irish-based multinational firm DPS.

He studied mechanical engineering in college, and emigrated in 1993 to work for the American corporation General Electric.

“I was based out of the States, but I travelled extensively in the Far East and the Middle East for General Electric as part of their power generation programme,” he said.

He then spent four years heading the engineering unit of a pharmaceutical company in Chantilly, Virginia, just outside Washington DC.

In 2000, he returned home. “That was really a boom time in Ireland, in terms of anybody who had experience overseas coming back. You were very employable here.

“I remember I came back for a week and I had six interviews, and six jobs (offered) in that week, so the problem was trying to decide what job to take.

“That wasn’t because I was brilliant, it was just because there was such a demand for people who had experience and were coming back to Ireland.”

He lived in Dublin for a time and then bought the farm which gives the food business its name in 2006. His home was built on the farm and, aside from a two-year spell working in upstate New York, he has been a Glasson resident since 2008.

Kevin explained that his farm was used for keeping horses before the decision was taken in recent years to move into food production.

He pointed out that there aren’t many people in the Athlone area who are producing products from the farm right through to being packaged and ready for shop shelves.

“In towns like Clonakilty, Kinsale or Kilkenny, there’s a huge amount of locals producing products and actually making a living from them. I see a huge opportunity certainly in Athlone and the Midlands (for something similar),” he said.

Discussing the choice of rapeseed oil and porridge oats as the first two products, he spoke about the health benefits of both.

“Rapeseed is a very healthy oil to use when cooking. It has a high flash point, so if you’re frying it’s very good in that sense versus an olive oil, which is very good as a cold oil, as a dressing, but not so good for frying.

“Rape as a plant is quite hard on the soil - it takes a lot of nutrients out. You have to rotate your crop and one of the recommended rotation crops for rape is porridge, so the obvious thing to do was to grow porridge oats, which we did last year, and we harvested them this August and produced our first batch of porridge oats.

“The timing is interesting in that there’s a huge promotion around eating porridge on a daily basis for cholesterol lowering. So they are two user-friendly products that people can use on a daily basis.”

Glasson butcher Liam McCormack was the first person to stock the rapeseed oil in his shop, and Glasson Farm products are now being supplied to stores including Behan's and Lowe & Co in Athlone, and Gillivan's butchers in Moate. Restaurants in Glasson and elsewhere have also started using the products and the feedback to date has been “very positive”.

The Glasson Farm products are not certified organic but Kevin said no chemicals are used in their production. “We are the exact same as organic. We don’t use pesticides, we don’t use chemicals, it’s all naturally grown,” he said.

“The organic brand is an important signature but there’s a cost associated with having it (certified). We’re asking why we have to put that extra cost onto it – why can’t we have it at as competitive price as possible so that the consumer can buy the product?”

Cost is an issue that returned later in the conversation. The oil and oats produced at Glasson Farm are priced higher than those produced by larger-scale businesses.

“One of our challenges is that, because it’s low-volume production, we’re probably more of an artisan producer as opposed to a mainstream producer,” he said.

“It’s something that we’re constantly working on, to try and have it priced as competitively as possible so it’s affordable for families to use on a regular basis.”

For anyone considering setting up their own business, he emphasised the importance of having a good business plan, knowing the market, understanding their cost base, and knowing their competition.

He added that the route to grant assistance “should be easier than it currently is” for start-ups.

Outside of his day-to-day work, Kevin is interested in outdoor activities such as cycling and sailing. But the combination of his engineering work and the food business makes for a very busy schedule.

“Yeah, it’s a seven-day operation!” he said. “As with any business you have to be passionate about what you do, and believe in your product. I believe in what we do, and the fact that it’s good for the consumer.

“It’s a great de-stresser, after putting in a busy week of travelling or working, to get out in the countryside (on the farm). The fresh air makes a huge difference to your mental health, which is equally as important as your physical health.”

Looking ahead, he feels there are opportunities to grow the business and add more products to the Glasson Farm range, with oat milk mentioned as one possibility.

“Ultimately we would hope to employ maybe four or five people within the next couple of years as we improve our brand, get our brand out there, and get our products into different outlets,” he said.

He added that his family felt a sense of pride in seeing the Glasson Farm products on the shelves.

“My daughter, who is nearly 9, loves coming around meeting prospective customers. She gets a great buzz out of walking into a shop and seeing a bottle of our oil or a bag of our porridge,” he smiled.