Buttery goodness from Cork

By Ellen O'Brien

It doesn't get any butter than this! A Cork butter business has added two new products to its tasty range.

Ór-Real Irish Butter, an award-winning Cork brand recognised at a number of industry food awards in Ireland, is adding two new products to their range as their sales continue to grow.

Ór-Real Irish Butter was first launched in October 2021 and is made in Kanturk by North Cork Creameries using the traditional method of slow churning. The two new products being released are a smaller 227g pack size and unsalted versions of their butter.

The brand is stocked in a range of supermarkets while they are also in negotiations with more retailiers for future partnerships.

North Cork Creameries is a farmer-owned independent company and has been making butter for almost 100 years. It employs 120 people directly and supports 250 farming families in North Cork, Kerry and Limerick.

Pat Sheahan, CEO of North Cork Creameries outlined the success that the butter brand has had. “Ór-Real Irish Butter is a huge success story for us. We have achieved our goal of establishing it as one of the leading brands in premium foil butter nationally in a very short space of time. We now have over 90% distribution with our current major retailers and plan to add more in the coming months.”

He also addressed the benefits the smaller pack will bring: “The new pack sizes will give additional choice to consumers, the smaller 227g packs are more convenient especially for baking.”

Con O’Sullivan, a North Cork Creameries milk supplier added that there is “something really special about seeing Ór-Real Irish Butter on sale in shops across the country knowing that it was made using milk from our farm”.

Over the past couple of years Ór-Real Irish butter has won in various categories of Irish Industry Food Awards. For the second year in a row it was named Gold Award winner in the butter category at the Irish Quality Food & Drink Awards and won Gold in the same category at Blás na hÉireann. Ór-Real Irish Butter was also recognised at the Great Taste Awards 2023.

Their expansion comes as their sales increased by 93% in 2023 and is already exceeding targets set for this year.