[0m0s] (Music starts)

[0m7s] Geraldine: Today we welcome Hayley Milthorpe from the Cultured Food Company in Skibbereen. Thanks for joining us today, Hayley.

[0m13s] Hayley: Hi Geraldine. Thanks a million for having me on the podcast. It’s very exciting to be here.

[0m19s] Geraldine: Hayley, how did your journey into fermented foods begin and what sparked the idea for the Cultured Food company?

[0m25s] Hayley: My journey with fermented foods began while studying to become a nutritionist. I left college with a passion for using food as a medicine rather than relying on supplements, which are expensive. And I wanted to do it the natural way. Started reading about ancestral diets and I came across fermentation because it’s an ancient method of food preservation. It’s how we used to preserve our foods before we had artificial preservatives and refrigeration. I began playing around in my kitchen at home making yogurt and sourdough bread, sauerkraut, all these products. And also fermented foods are naturally rich in beneficial bacteria. From studying nutrition, I knew how fundamental your gut health is and how important having a healthy colony of gut bacteria is. Eating fermented foods regularly boosts your gut flora, which supports your digestion and it boosts immunity. I say that’s where my love affair with fermented foods began. I was just having fun making these foods at home for me and my family. Around 2013, I spotted in the US that fermented foods was a developing food trend. You couldn’t buy these foods here in Ireland. I thought, wow, I think I’m onto something here. I started a little stall down at the local farmer’s market here in Skibbereen. It was a bit of fun, just to test the waters. I didn’t know where I was going, what it was going to turn into, but that’s where I started. And the rest is history. The company formally was founded in 2014. It was April 2014, so we’re coming up for our 11th year in business and I’d never dreamed that it would get to where it is today.

[2m35s] Geraldine: Okay. And what does fermented food mean to someone unfamiliar?

[2m39s] Hayley: Fermented foods mean foods which are naturally preserved. Fermented foods essentially are our missing food group. It’s how we used to preserve foods prior to refrigeration and artificial preservatives. They’re naturally rich in beneficial bacteria from the fermentation process. There’s different forms of fermentation. The type of fermentation that we do is lacto fermentation, which relies on the lactobacilli bacteria, which are naturally present on all living matter – fruit and vegetables, even on our own skin. And the bacteria break down the starches and the sugars on the vegetables, releasing carbon dioxide, which is where you get the gas and the fizziness, and lactic acid, which drops the pH, bringing it into a natural state of fermentation. And they usually have quite a strong Flavour profile, being sour.

[3m38s] Geraldine: Okay. Okay. And how far does it go back? Do you know?

[3m43s] Hayley: Many years. Many, many years. Gengis Khan brought sauerkraut to China when he was building the Great Wall of China.

[3m54s] Geraldine: Okay, that’s a long time ago.

[3m55s] Hayley: It’s a long time ago. Yeah.

[3m57s] Geraldine: Okay. And what are some of the health benefits of your products?

[4m3s] Hayley: Number one, you’re replenishing your gut flora. People today are being afflicted by diseases of modern man that were not around 100 years ago. A lot of it stems from a problem in the gut, an imbalance in the gut, which leads to an imbalance in the immune system. You’re replenishing your gut flora on a regular basis, which aids the digestion. The foods that you’re putting into your body, you can break them down and you can absorb the nutrients. And it also, they call your gut your second brain. That’s because of the gut brain axis. You house a large amount of your neurotransmitters in your gut. When I say neurotransmitters, I mean those feel good hormones such as serotonin and dopamine. Looking after your gut flora also plays a huge part in your mental health. Keep your gut healthy, have good digestion, good immunity, and good mental health.

[5m8s] Geraldine: Okay. And how do you educate people on the benefits of fermented food?

[5m12s] Hayley: We have a strong presence on social media. We have to be careful about what we say because as a food company, we’re not really supposed to be making health claims. But it’s an exciting time. Especially after COVID, people started to take their own health into their hands, going online, researching different foods. And fermented foods, they’ve been coming onto the scene for the last, I’d say the last six years, it’s really been kicking off. I started the company in 2014. And it was a tough sell here in Ireland. Nobody had any interest in eating sauerkraut and kimchi. But times have really begun to change, especially since COVID. Yeah, we’re lucky in the fact that people come looking for fermented foods and they Google it, we come up. We try to be clever and talk a little bit on social media as much as we can, but a lot of it’s people organically coming to look for these products because they’ve heard how beneficial they are for your health. Even doctors are starting to talk about fermented foods now.

[6m20s] Geraldine: I suppose people generally are just becoming a little bit more health conscious and are looking for solutions maybe.

[6m26s] Hayley: Yeah, I mean, so many people are having digestive disturbances. The food that we eat today is so processed. And more and more people are beginning to realize that their gut just doesn’t feel quite right. And starting to question what they’re eating. And I believe that’s only going to get worse.

[6m44s] Geraldine: And beyond health benefits, what role do you see your products playing enhancing the culinary experience?

[6m50s] Hayley: Fermented foods add an instant burst of Flavour to any meal. They transcend the ordinary into the extraordinary. You can take a sandwich and you can make a gourmet sandwich by adding in a sauerkraut or a kimchi. They have such a strong Flavour profile that you can easily enhance a meal. And they’re incredibly versatile. And I like to say that sour is the new sweet. Sometimes you’re looking for a different Flavour. So it’s very popular among the foodies. Kimchi exploded. Pardon the pun. But it’s exploded in Ireland. Sometimes we have exploding jars, so that’s why I said pardon the pun. Sometimes the carbon dioxide builds up in the jar too much, the lids pop, they explode. But kimchi’s basically exploded here in Ireland. And I think it’s because of the super strong Flavour profile. And with Gen Z, they’re big into strong bold Flavours.

[7m51s] Geraldine: And what’s your most popular product and why do you think that is?

[7m54s] Hayley: It’s kimchi. I think this is fuelled by the fact that it’s a traditional South Korean product. And Korean cuisine has also become quite popular. It has a really strong Flavour profile, the ginger and the chili and the garlic. It’s a real burst of Flavour. You can enhance so many different meals with it. It appeals to a lot of foodies. And I found that a lot of people have a preconceived idea about what sauerkraut tastes like. They think it’s the smelly stuff that Germans eat. And we’re working hard to change that. And we’re incorporating some exciting Flavours. Once people try it, they’re like, oh, that’s not how I thought it was going to be. And what’s actually really interesting is once people start bringing it into their diet, you crave it. I think your body knows that it needs it.

[8m51s] Geraldine: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And can you describe your production process in a nutshell?

[8m56s] Hayley: The short version is you take cabbage, chop it, mix it with sea salt, add in various seasonings and spices, pack it into a barrel, push it down under its own liquid, and let it sit in a container for two months.

[9m12s] Geraldine: That’s it?

[9m12s] Hayley: Yeah, that’s it.

[9m14s] Geraldine: Could you walk us through your sourcing process for the organic ingredients?

[9m19s] Hayley: At the moment, we are sourcing our vegetables from Holland. The majority come from mainland Europe. Primarily, that’s because of the volume that we’re using. There’s nobody growing Chinese leaf cabbage in Ireland. We use around 24,000 Chinese leaf cabbage a month. We’re talking to an Irish farmer at the moment about them growing cabbage for us in 2026. We’re excited about that. It’s definitely something that I would like to do as an Irish company is to support other Irish companies.

[9m54s] Geraldine: And it’s quite a traditional, I suppose, fermentation process. How do you balance that with the demands of modern production?

[10m3s] Hayley: I feel I have a very simple production process. We have no refrigeration. There’s no cooking. There’s no heat. When you compare us to some other companies, we have a very simple process. The only thing that goes against us is that we’re relying on the bacteria and yeast that are present on the vegetables. It’s called wild fermentation. A lot of commercial sauerkraut producers will inoculate the batch with a strain of bacteria, but we don’t; we leave it. We call it wild fermentation. And every now and then you’ll have a batch that just goes funky. There’s no answer. I don’t know why it’s gone like that. It doesn’t happen often. When we open a batch of sauerkraut, we test the pH. We have to have a pH below a certain level. If anything is above that, then there’s something wrong. We do also smell and taste and texture. It doesn’t happen often. We might lose maybe two bins a year.

[11m5s] Geraldine: I suppose it’s just a natural product that’s just the price of it.

[11m8s] Hayley: It’s just a natural product and sometimes things go a little awry and I have no explanation as to what’s happened.

[11m16s] Geraldine: Fair enough. And you mentioned there about before when you started, there was no demand as such. What’s Ireland’s consumption of fermented foods like compared to well-established consumers like China and Eastern Europe?

[11m28s] Hayley: Traditionally we wouldn’t have a strong drive towards eating fermented foods here in Ireland. I personally feel that older generations in Ireland had a much more traditional, simple diet. They didn’t have the availability of all these global foods. And traditionally we weren’t consuming a lot of fermented foods. Now, every culture around the world does have some form of fermented food in the diet. And in Ireland that would have primarily been buttermilk and soured milk which was used for making soda bread. Things are really starting to change now. We have much wider availability of global foods in the supermarkets these days. Also the online influence on social media, recipes going around online. And I find that my own generation and younger, they have a preference towards much stronger Flavours and bolder Flavours, global cooking, global fusion Flavours.

[12m39s] Geraldine: And Cork has a vibrant food scene. How has been based here shaped your journey and the community you’ve connected with?

[12m45s] Hayley: I started in the market in Skibbereen and everybody was really welcoming and really curious about what I was doing because there was nobody else; I was first to market with these type of products. And I connected with quite a few companies, food companies from West Cork. And everyone was willing to offer advice and support. And then I set up with the local enterprise office and started doing start your own food business with the enterprise office. It’s definitely been inspirational being in West Cork and there’s definitely a really strong food culture here. I return the same favour now to other food companies. And I just think it’s what goes around comes around. People in West Cork are so open and friendly and generally willing to help one another anyway.

[13m39s] Geraldine: Yeah.

[13m40s] Hayley: It’s definitely had a positive effect.

[13m43s] Geraldine: And building a food brand involves more than just the product. How have you approached the visual and storytelling aspect of the Cultured food company on platforms like Instagram?

[13m52s] Hayley: The story behind the Cultured Food Company is a mother who became a nutritionist and developed a passion for fermented foods. So it goes in that order, mother, nutritionist, and passion for fermented foods. It was wanting to nurture my children and myself that this whole journey began. I always loved being at home with my children and making meals from scratch and took health and nutrition very seriously. That is the backbone of the Culture Food Company.

[14m27s] Geraldine: How have you tried to get that message across to everyone else?

[14m31s] Hayley: We tell the story on social media. And I think it’s really important for a company to have a story.

[14m38s] Geraldine: Yeah. It’s not just about the business, it’s about the people behind us.

[14m42s] Hayley: I had digestive disturbances. And that’s why I went to study nutrition because I wanted to find answers. And fermented foods became the answer for me. I feel so much better when I eat fermented foods regularly. And I wanted to bring this product to the Irish consumer. And we were the first commercial producer of sauerkraut and Kimchi in Ireland. And we developed a strong brand over the last 11 years. And we’ve got a good following. We have some really loyal customers. And I want to keep developing that here in Ireland and remain at the forefront of the fermented food revolution. That’s the goal of the Cultured Food company and to continue developing the range and bringing in different products and offering a solution to people who are struggling with digestion or looking for some convenient way to spice up a meal.

[15m40s] Geraldine: Okay. And what challenges did you face starting a food business?

[15m44s] Hayley: It was scary because I had no experience of business. I left school when I was 16. I didn’t even do business studies. I didn’t do business studies for my junior cert. It was overwhelming at times and doing it on my own was a bit scary. And I made mistakes along the way, but I fell fast and picked myself up and kept going. I definitely had a resilience. I’ve learned so much along the way, even managing doing financial projections and forecasting and cash flow, so important, but I had no clue of that in the early days. And I was very lucky that we just seemed to avoid disaster and the company kept growing and people said I was ahead of the trend, that it was too early for these products in Ireland. But starting off small and growing at a healthy pace, slow and steady wins the race. I was going along slow and steady and it allowed me to learn as I was going along and to not make any serious mistakes. And now as the company’s got bigger, I’m still presented with challenges and I remind myself that if you fail, this is an opportunity now to learn. When something goes wrong, I learn something from it and pick myself up and keep going. And I look after myself as well. Self-care and be kind to myself.

[17m26s] Geraldine: And what’s your favourite way to incorporate your products in your own meals?

[17m30s] Hayley: I love having an Asian meal. So like a poké ball or a ramen and having kimchi. Kimchi’s my favourite. To be honest with you, I have it quite often for breakfast, fried eggs, half an avocado, and a pile of kimchi. It’s an amazing start to the day. This year we’re launching some new Flavours with the sauerkraut and I’m really excited to do that because they’re really global fusion Flavours, very different to the Cultured Food company range at the moment. That’s exciting. I’m looking forward to bringing those to the shelf.

[18m6s] Geraldine: Very good. And what role does sustainability play in your business Ethos?

[18m10s] Hayley: We use glass packaging. The packaging is sustainable. We try to source our products sustainably. Hopefully 2026 will see us partner with an Irish farmer who will grow the cabbage for us. I like to engage with the community. I’ve run courses on fermentation. Skibbereen has a food festival. We’ve had people to the premises and we’ve taught them how to do fermentation. And we’ve had transition year students up; we’re always happy to have some students come up here and get a feel for what we’re doing. And also by nature, fermented foods are a sustainable product, low energy product, and it’s a really great way to prevent food from going off. Fermentation in itself, you can preserve your vegetables. By nature fermented foods are a sustainable product. And not everybody around the world has got access to electricity and they can use fermentation as a way to preserve their foods. And we’re low energy because there’s no refrigeration, there’s no cooking. Just by the very nature of it. And we like to give all the vegetable scraps to a local farmer and he feeds them all to the cows and the pigs. We’re low waste as well. Low energy, low waste. And we are also playing a part in educating the world about consuming fermented foods and the impact that they can have on your health. We’re helping the world stay healthy.

[19m45s] Geraldine: And how do you see the Cultured food trend evolving? And you mentioned there about your own future plans with the launch of the new products. What are your other future plans for the culture food company?

[19m56s] Hayley: We’d like to remain at the forefront of fermentation here in Ireland and be the number one brand when people think of fermented vegetables. We’d like to see ourselves become a household name. And we’re looking to expand into other European markets and keep working on that relationship with our customers, educating people, the health benefits, and developing the range of products and not just doing sauerkraut and kimchi, but different types of fermented vegetable products.

[20m30s] Geraldine: The world is your oyster, so.

[20m32s] Hayley: Exactly, yeah. Yeah.

[20m34s] Geraldine: And what advice would you give aspiring food entrepreneurs?

[20m37s] Hayley: I would say give it a go. Have your story, the story behind the company, who are you and how has the company began? Story is really important. Reach out to the local enterprise office. There’s so much support there for companies, startup companies in Ireland. If it doesn’t work, then go back to the drawing board and try something else. Because I think if somebody has that entrepreneurial spirit, keep trying. I started this company, zero knowledge on business. I had no idea I was starting a food company. If I can do it, anybody can do it.

[21m19s] Geraldine: Yeah, yeah. Fair enough. Thanks so much Hayley for having us here today. If you want to learn more about Hayley and the Cultured Food Company, you can find links to her socials and website on Corkreative.ie. Thank you.

[21s] (Music fades out)