An Armagh husband-and-wife duo with a shared passion for quality produce and a long-time dream of ‘growing’ something together have launched their own family-run produce business.
Lislea Roots is run entirely by Jonathan ‘Jonny’ and Maria Fahy – along with the occasional help of their five children!
Jonny has been working in the food industry his entire adult career – over 15 years. His main expertise is fresh produce – particularly the ‘wonderful world’ of potatoes.
Earlier this year, he made the decision to take the next step and begin building a family business for the future.
Jonathan explained: “I felt that there was a gap in the market in NI for a premium quality, hand-packed potato grown on the island that was presented in more traditional, potato friendly packaging.”
Specialising solely on potatoes, Jonathan’s aim is to keep the business small and manageable, focusing on one key product to ensure quality over quantity.
He continued: “We are passionate about Irish potatoes, undoubtedly the humble spud has a long-standing history in Ireland, and it is something we should be incredibly proud of. In the world we live in, imports are inevitable, but we strongly believe that if we can grow it ourselves on the island of Ireland then we absolutely should do so, and potatoes are top of this list, we should all support Irish grown as far as we possibly can.”
To begin, Jonny started the business off slowly, focusing on supplying his produce in Keady and Armagh only. Once confident they had the right product and packaging, Lislea Roots began suppling further a field in south Armagh, Newry and County Tyrone… and now supplying as far as Belfast!
“The biggest challenge was actually finding the perfect packaging for our product, we really wanted to get it right and it took a lot of trial and error,” he said.
“At the moment we supply four different varieties of potatoes in our small white paper bags and we are working on launching a bigger bag in the coming months, so keep an eye out! Other fruit and veg products may well follow with time; however, we can’t lose focus on our potatoes and ensuring that our customers are happy when they buy a bag of Lislea Roots. Sustainability is important to us; that’s one of the main reasons that we use paper bags rather than plastic.”
With just Jonny and Maria running every part of the business, its an early start for the pair with the work day commencing at 4.30am. Early starts and late evenings are essential as the pair check each individual potato to ensure it is of the highest quality – a process Jonny says cannot be rushed!
Once all the orders are packed up for the day, Jonny hits the roads to deliver the goods, spending up to eight hours a day out on the roads dropping off to different locations. “The early start allows us to have more time in the evening to dedicate to the kids, so although we are probably working more hours than ever, we now have the flexibility to plan it around our family.
“In the evenings there is usually time set aside for admin and also getting ahead with preparing the packaging. We also have many activities that our kids need to bring to and from, so we work around this too.”
Spending his whole career working for others and now newly self-employed, Jonny has quickly realised first hand that the working day never really ends when working for yourself…
“The main difference I have noticed about being self-employed is the fact that there is always something to do, I always have at least ten things bobbling around in my head that need to be looked at,” he said.
“To be honest we are learning every day, it is really nothing at all like a 9-5 job, everything takes a lot of planning, because you can’t afford to waste any time or effort. I always thought that my career was extremely busy, however it was nothing like this!”
But with all the early mornings and late nights, the work is paying off in the space of just a few short months, Lislea Roots are now stocked across 40 locations! Their products can be found in stockists across Co. Armagh, Tyrone and Down, with the pair setting their sights on expanding their presence all over Ireland.
“Securing over 40 customers in a short space of time has been a big achievement for us, and to be honest, this is due to the work we put into developing the product, we are very proud of the fact that we can offer our customers a potato of real quality in packaging meant for potatoes, whilst also reducing the amount of single use plastic in the food chain.
“We certainly aren’t in this business to become millionaires, we just want to do something we enjoy and at the same time be there for our kids and each other, and that’s something you can’t put a price on.”
Lislea Roots can be found across various different stores in Co Armagh, Down, Tyrone and Belfast.
For more information and to find your closest stockist, contact Jonny on 07516943922 or lisleapotatoes@gmail.com
Click here to follow them on Facebook
