Peter Keogh on their farm in the 1950's

The Shamrock is widely regarded as the symbol of Ireland. In 2012 the Keogh Family launched the world’s first-ever shamrock flavored food delight, "Hand Cooked Shamrock and Sour Cream Irish Potato Chip" (called 'crisps' in Ireland). These hand cooked potato chips are produced at the crisping house on the Keogh’s Family Farm in north county Dublin. They slice each spud extra thick and gently hand cook them, skins and all, in fresh sunflower oil using a very old American kettle.

This entrepreneurial Irish farming family have been growing potatoes in north county Dublin for over 200 years. The city of Dublin has grown around the farm over the years. 

Tom Keogh, managing director of the family business is passionate about potatoes. “We are the only potato growers in the world who offer fresh potatoes and potato chips from the same farm side by side in the same store and we sleep, eat, breathe potato chips and potatoes!” he said. “We are committed to working with Irish food producers like ourselves to create a distinctly Irish range of chips and we are delighted to be working with the "Living Shamrock" company in Ballinskelligs, Co. Kerry. This area has been producing fresh shamrock for the American President since 1952”.

The Keogh Family Potato Farmers
Keogh’s are the only “on-farm” producers of hand cooked potato chips in Ireland. They set up a small ‘crisping house’ on their farm, hand cooking the chips in small batches and turning them from “Crop to Crisp” on the same day.

Keogh’s also have three other original flavours of crisps available. They include: Roast Beef and Dungarvan Irish Stout Crisps, created with Irish Stout from Dungarvan Brewing Company, Keogh’s Dubliner Irish Cheese & Onion Crisps and Keogh’s Atlantic Sea Salt & Lewellyn’s Irish Cider Vinegar Crisps using David Llewellyn’s Irish Orchard Produce from his small-holding in North County Dublin, near the Keogh’s Farm, where he grows a range of fruits and produces his award-winning cider vinegar. 

Keogh’s recently launched their unique ‘Spud Nav’ through which consumers can trace their bag of chips right back to the field it came from! Simply enter the potato field name (which is printed on each bag) into the ‘SpudNav’ page on the Keoghs website and the web app will show you the exact field that the potatoes were grown in!

The new SpudNav will show you exactly where your Potato Chips came from
This month, November 2012, will see the arrival of the fifth flavour of Keogh’s potato chips. Just in time for Christmas they are launching a new hand-cooked Keogh’s Roast Turkey and Secret Stuffing Crisp. They have seasoned these potato chips with their own secret stuffing recipe, handed down through the generations and contains herbs and spices picked fresh from their farmhouse garden which was started in the 1920’s. The succulent roast turkey flavours give the potato chips an authentic Irish home-grown festive taste. Yum!

Keoghs Farm are on Twitter at @KeoghsFarm and can check out more about their range of Irish crisps (potato chips) and purchase them too, online here.

For more from Zack see www.IrishFoodGuide.ie