Taste of Success on RTE features Tipperary farmer

Earlier this year Lidl and RTE launched Taste of Success, and sent out the call across the country for budding entrepreneurs to come up with a product that would fit into the mix of products already available in Lidl stores.

There was a magnificent prize available – €100,000, which includes marketing support, product royalties, a cash prize and the chance to see your product featured and sold on the shelves of 141 Lidl stores across Ireland.

Without any hesitation Alfie McCaffrey from Oldfarm, Redwood, in North Tipperary decided to enter his free-range pork burger into the competition.  There were hundreds of entries, and Alfie’s pork burger was chosen to go through to the Munster finals. Alfie travelled to Cork in July to be interviewed by the Munster Regional Mentor, Martin Shanahan of Fishy Fishy….. despite not being able to bring a sample of his product to the interview Alfie got through to the next stage.

On a scorching hot day at the Cork Summer Fair, the 8 finalists from Munster cooked and presented their products to the judges – Paul Flynn, Lidl Ambassador and The Tannery, Dungarvan; and Martin Shanahan, Fishy Fishy, Kinsale.  Then it was time for a select group of the public to vote, and make their judgements as to which four products they thought were good enough to go through to the next round.

The tension while waiting for the announcement for the four finalists was palpable.  The products were diverse and interesting, and all finalists had put their heart and soul into the competition.

The good news for North Tipperary is that Alfie’s free-range pork burger was one of the four finalists to go through to the next round.

The show is aired on RTE1 at 8.30 pm on Tuesday evenings.  Alfie’s first show will be on Tuesday 11th November.

Did he get through the next round?  Sure, that would spoil the surprise… you’ll just have to watch and see.