Hi there,

It's been soooo long since I've updated this and so much has been going on. We have a new addition to our team - Rena who is wonderful. Rena will be helping us develop new products and make us more methodical as we tend to be a bit all over the place (Cully that is!!).

We've also now finally, finally got our pies tasting exactly the way we want them to taste. As you may know, we transferred our pie business from France (because they had the sous-vide cooking method) back to Ireland last October. This was unquestionably the most stressful and difficult thing we have ever had to do and it was an unmitigated nightmare.

All our great customers were killing us as the pies tasted different and so on and we were working around the clock to make them right. We would change one thing (like reducing the herbs) and then we would have to change 10 other things. It went on and on. But we're there now and after just having had a lamb pie I can safely say they are fully back to being totally and utterly delicious. A lot of people are asking us are we being affected by the downturn and being honest we don't seem to be. We are still very positive about the future and all the signs from England and the US is that even in times of recession people will want to eat good food.

The whole thing is terrifying as our soup production has just been extended and our whole pie business is completely new. But we're more weather dependent than anything else. Good cold miserable weather is what we want! Sorry... Here's another DAFT thing being imposed on producers Health warning: this milk bottle contains, er, milk In a nation overwhelmed by health and safety paranoia, shops go to great lengths to protect themselves from litigious customers.

So we’ve had bags of peanuts warning they contain nuts and eggboxes telling the unwary that inside are eggs. Asda it emerged yesterday, really is milking this trend for all its worth. On the side of its plastic milk bottles, under the heading ‘Allergy Advice’, is the warning: ‘Contains Milk’.