Galway’s Green Earth Organics, a business that has been deeply rooted in sustainability since its inception in May 2006 - when it made its first organic vegetable box deliveries - has marked its 20th birthday by announcing a new Sustainability Festival featuring thought leaders from the interconnected areas of food, health, nature and the environment.
The special celebratory event will take place on Green Earth Organics’ twenty eight-acre 100% certified organic family-run vegetable farm in Corrandulla, on Saturday September 12 to coincide with its bountiful autumn harvest.
Throughout the day the festival’s focal point marquee will host a series of panel talks packed full of practical sustainable tips from headline guest speakers including Ballymaloe Cookery School’s Darina Allen, chef & restaurateur JP McMahon, GIY’s Mick Kelly, zero waste chef, Conor Spacey, and Green Earth Organics’ founder, Kenneth Keavey.
Deirdre Duffy, chief executive for Friends of the Earth - a leading environmental organisation working to create a sustainable future - nature restoration charity, Hometree, sustainability advocate & strategist, Pat Kane (Founder of Reuzi ), Blasta Books’ author, Giselle Makinde, and Instagram star, Chef Lou Robbie, have also been confirmed as contributors.
Furthermore festivalgoers will get the chance to join Green Earth Organics’ Farm Manager on an informative farm walk and enjoy field-based cookery demonstrations with UK-based Guardian columnist and author of ‘Cooking For Pleasure, People & Planet’, Tom Hunt.
And, Hunt will be joined on stage by Jacinta Dalton (Head of Culinary Arts & Service Industries, ATU Galway ), a prominent figure in Ireland’s holistic health movement, and Heather McGuire - founder of The Preventative Kitchen™, a culinary medicine and communications consultancy - to discuss how your food choices can change your life.
As part of the festival, Green Earth Organics will host food trucks, Chipeen and The Salt Project, which will offer a hyperlocal plant-focused menu that showcases seasonal produce picked on the farm, alongside tastings from local growers and artisan food producers, live music and much more.
Green Earth Organics’ Sustainability Festival will take place from 10am to 5pm on Saturday September 12th on its farm in Corrandulla, Co Galway. Full detailed information on the event is available to view online at www.greenearthorganics.ie
Adult tickets priced at €40.00 per person and a limited number of Kids tickets (for children aged 12 and under ) priced at €10.00 per child are available to purchase online via Evenbrite.com All proceeds generated from the sale of Kids tickets will be donated to charity, with the proceeds split equally between Friends of the Earth and Hometree.
Commenting on the festival announcement and celebrating 20 years in business, Green Earth Organics’ Founder, Kenneth Keavey, said: “To celebrate 20 years in business, I am absolutely delighted to announce this festival of food and sustainability. Considering the backdrop of what has been happening to our Irish food primary producers over the last 20 years it is a privilege and an honor to still be here and to be thriving.
I am immensely proud of having built a truly sustainable food system, backed by our own farm and a network of other organic farmers, here in Ireland and further afield. We could do none of this without the support of our great team and loyal customers, and I am truly excited about the amazing line up of speakers and the interesting and entertaining conversations we will have on September 12th.”
Husband and wife team, Jenny and Kenneth Keavey, started Green Earth Organics on land in Corrandulla, Co. Galway that originally belonged to Kenneth’s grandfather, Martin Keavey.
The couple put the farm into conversion for organic status in 2004 and it was subsequently certified 100% organic by the Irish Organic Association in 2006.
Green Earth Organics made its first vegetable box deliveries locally in May 2006, before expanding their business to offer nationwide deliveries of their 100% organic fruit and vegetables to customers from 2015 onwards. Demand for their organic offering has since grown into a customer base of more than 5,000 households all over Ireland.
They now farm twenty eight acres organically, growing over twenty different types of crop and employing forty full-time and part-time staff locally, as well as supporting fifteen other small-scale Irish organic growers across the country, who supply them weekly.
As their name suggests, Green Earth Organics is sustainably focused, with the Keavey’s keen to create a better food system that has the environment and our planet at the heart of every decision they make as a farm, and as a business.
To increase biodiversity on their farm, the pair and their team have planted as many as 7,000 trees, as well as protecting hundreds of metres of native wild Irish hedgerows, and have put one acre aside for rewilding, which is now home to their two roaming rescue pigs, George and Florence. Native wildflowers are grown extensively, pollinated by colonies of bees from the nine hives onsite and the farmers use crop rotations and green manures to improve soil fertility.
All of Green Earth Organics’ boxes contain 100% certified organic, chemical free, sustainably and, where possible, locally grown produce and are conveniently delivered directly to customers’ doors plastic free. Local home deliveries in the Galway area are made using the farm’s own electric van, which has been on the road and reducing the farm’s carbon footprint since 2021.
Green Earth Organics was also the first company to use compostable bags for packaging salads and greens, and collect their Forest Stewardship Council (FSC ) approved boxes on their local delivery rounds for reuse up to ten times.
More recently, the business has also increased the production capacity of their solar panels on its farm in Corrandulla, Co. Galway, from 10 KWs to 30 KWs.
