When the economy hurtled haplessly off a cliff in 2009, job losses, company closures and a general sense of fear were the order of the day. While some industries were more impacted than others, our indigenous food sector was particularly vulnerable.

You can’t beat a good recession when it comes to rallying the troops or, in this case, Irish consumers, most of whom were already feeling their own personal pain. As Ajai Chopra and his team from the International Monetary Fund were drawing up the stringent terms of Ireland’s burdensome bailout, consumers had already reined in their spending habits, become a lot more promiscuous when it came to their choice of retailer while at the same time doing what they could to support Irish food brands.

Some of this economic patriotism can be attributed to Love Irish Food, the trade organisation that represents indigenous Irish food companies and which was set up in 2008 to encourage people to buy Irish food brands.

Tapping into the prevailing zeitgeist at the time, it rallied both the indigenous food sector and consumers around a simple and instantly relatable proposition: buying Irish food brands that use Irish ingredients where possible helps Irish businesses to survive and protects Irish jobs.

Such was the potency of the message that retailers like Aldi, Lidl and Tesco – none of which had anything to do with Love Irish Food – triumphantly proclaimed in their advertising campaigns that they too were doing their bit to support Irish producers and farmers around the country. But, as they say, every little helps.

Anyone working in marketing between 2008 and 2010 will recall with a degree of horror that these were indeed desperate times.

Not only were marketing and advertising budgets slashed – or in some cases done away with altogether – but entire marketing departments were cut back or, in some cases, relocated back to Blighty.

For those left standing, it’s fair to say that the vast majority of Irish food brands could not compete on the marketing stage to the same extent as they had in the past.

For Irish food brands, big and small, being able to put the Love Irish Food logo on their packaging was a marketing Godsend as it sent out the hopeful message that if you buy this product, you are doing your bit for the economy. Fast forward nine years and Love Irish Food is still going strong and research shows that as many as 87pc of grocery shoppers actively attempt to buy Irish alternatives to imported products.

Notwithstanding the threats that Brexit presents for Irish food exporters, Love Irish Food now has over 100 member brands which, between them, employ over 15,000 staff. Some of its members include the likes of Ballygowan, Avonmore, Kilmeaden, Flahavan’s, McGargles, Keogh’s, Dairymaid, Fruice, Golden Irish, Ballymaloe and Gino’s Gelato.

This article is from the Sunday Independent, written by John McGee November 26 2017