A local food producer has proudly secured a space for her tasty products on Supervalu shelves around Donegal.
It’s an exciting step for Sia Brown – the creator of Tasty Kitchen curry paste pots. The Letterkenny-based businesswoman has been growing her brand from its beginnings in her home kitchen and now her Thai pastes are stocked in a variety of stores around Donegal.
Her participation in the Food Academy, run by the Local Enterprise Office in partnership with SuperValu and Bord Bia, has the set ball rolling on an exciting journey.
Sia’s paste pots may be small, but they’re packed with flavour. She started making curry pastes to make mealtimes easier and healthier for her own young family. Soon her friends wanted batches, and when opportunities came along for food development programmes, Sia wanted to take the pots to the next level.
In the meantime, she started selling at the Letterkenny Farmers Market to get some live feedback. A year later, she got the nod from SuperValu to start stocking on their shelves in Donegal from 25th April. The products are also available at Kelly’s Centra Mountain Top Letterkenny and Simpsons Supermarket, Glencar Letterkenny.
Sia makes all the pastes herself, with her mum helping as her right-hand woman.
Her talent and passion come from her family, she says: “My parents ran a restaurant in Greece. I grew up in Greece and the restaurant environment. I’m a big fan of cooking and finding ingredients that have a lot of flavour and that makes life a lot easier. With a premade paste pot full of flavour, you don’t have to do anything too complicated, all you have to do is fry up some vegetables, some chicken or meat if you want, add the pot and a can of coconut and in 15 minutes you have a really tasty curry that would rival any restaurant.”
The three pastes vary in flavour and heat and are freshly made, with no additives, no preservatives and no stabilisers. Sia sources her ingredients from local Asian stores in Donegal.
“I use heat treatment to preserve them. They are gluten-free, plant-based, no allergens and they can be frozen and cooked from frozen. They are minimal calories because they are all natural ingredients,” she said.
Sia has big plans up her sleeve for Tasty Kitchen Ireland, starting with in-store tastings around Donegal in the weeks to come. For details, make sure to follow her Facebook and Instagram pages @tastykitchenireland or shop online at: www.tastykitchen.ie
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