It has been widely said that Irish consumers should buy Irish food – some consumers suspect that it’s a desperate attempt by some unscrupulous peddlers to wrap themselves in a (national) flag of convenience. Supporting Irish primary producers (Irish farmers) should be the first point in motivational purchasing decisions from every Irish manufacturer’s perspective. However, the primary producer should be producing foods of the highest quality whilst embracing best practice. This is fundamental. If Irish food manufacturers fail to source locally, then why should consumers bother to buy from them? The only argument for Irish manufacturers sourcing outside this jurisdiction should be on the grounds of unavailability; price alone should not be a barrier and superior quality should be a prerequisite.

The Power of the Consumer:

If there is a broad acceptance of these principles of trading internally and trading fairly, the Irish consumer must exercise their influence – engaging more with Irish manufacturers and becoming more vocal at supermarket level by insisting on products that meet the following simple criteria:

- Irish manufactured
- Primary ingredient is Irish
- Best quality

If the product does not tick all boxes, then the question should be asked, “Why not?”

As consumers, we have the power to effect real change: the recently launched Love Irish Food campaign calculates that if just one third of Irish households spent only €1.67 more on Irish purchases each week, an additional €35 million would be generated for the Irish economy.
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For those “Flatearthers” that still fail to see the madness in our society’s continued urgency to burn every last drop/bit of fossil fuel left on/in the Earth, let me try an economic argument.

For the few that have oil, i.e. those few countries that sit on massive reserves of the black stuff, it does not always lead to nirvana – show me a Garden of Eden story based on the proceeds of oil, where the wealth generated has flown into Government coffers and has in turn, been reasonably distributed or allowed to filter down– none? For the rest of us, oil will continue to burden consumers, industry, agriculture and governments alike. Certainly, continued sales of oil leads to increased taxation flowing into the Department of Finance/Exchequer but this only serves to fuel (pun intended) an artificial distortion of trade, as those that by and large sell us the oil, purchase little of what it is we make in return (most oil seems to be discovered in remote and lowly populated areas in the World – think desert!). We must therefore wean ourselves off the addiction that is oil. Every spike in oil prices (notice at how the cost of crude oil jumps at every piece of positive economic data emanating from the US in particular?) leads to unprecedented levels of global inflation. If oil and the cost of a tank of fuel was the only product impacted then disaster could be mitigated, but all sectors of society are also so heavily dependent on oil, including industry, food production and transportation. Society (and by that I mean individuals) need to accept this fundamental point in order for meaningful change to occur.
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