In the heart of the Lee Valley, which boasts assets such as Gougane Barra and Ireland’s only toy soldier factory, a canopy of trees almost meets in the middle over a winding road that leads to Toonsbridge Dairy.

At the dairy, classical music is being played from a retro radio, there are bulbs of garlic everywhere, chilli hangs from the ceiling and wooden buckets lie upside-down to dry – ready for their next batch of olives.

Next door, “the sales guy” is making pesto because “the pesto guy” is on holidays and in the room beyond that, Marco-the-molecular-biologist-from-Naples and Maud-from-France are making cheese; mozzarella, haloumi, scamorza and dried ricotta.

Until another Italian, Franco, arrived this year, Toonsbridge Dairy had resigned its faith to never being able to make mozzarella as good as the Italians.

But when it finally got the mozzarella science right, they discovered that the grass-fed buffalo reared in Ireland produce a mozzerella as good as, if not a superior product to, the Italian variety.

Next summer, the café on-site will reopen and wood-fired pizzas will be made in the courtyard outside. A mile behind the dairy are the buffalo, on the farm of Johnny Lynch, who runs Toonsbridge Dairy with his business partner Toby Simmonds.

There, the cows graze peacefully in the September sun, even if these Italian animals weirdly hate the heat.

“In 17°C they will put their whole head into a trough. They’d be lying in that drain if they could,” says James Roche, who works on the farm.

Toonsbridge Dairy mozzarella is just one product stocked in the Castle Hotel in nearby Macroom, where I met some of the committee behind Macroom Food Festival, which takes place this weekend, 26-28 September. Don O’Leary is the committee chairperson and co-owner of the hotel, and he’s determined to have local produce on the menu.

“We’re trying to keep as much money being spent locally as we possibly can,” he says.

The festival was born at a bar counter one night and is now in its third year. It received the backing of Cork County Council and Macroom Town Council from the beginning. Catherine Costello, who works in the Macroom Enterprise Centre, and Jo Cronin-Lovell, who works for Lee Valley Enterprise Board, are also on the committee.

They say there was more food talent in the locality than even the enterprise board could have imagined.

“I’ve been working in small business for the last seven years in Macroom and there were small food businesses that came out of the woodwork that I had never come across before. It’s a good opportunity for those smaller, artisan, handmade producers to shine,” says Catherine.

This year’s festival includes a new event, An Artisan Affair, which takes place on the Friday night. It involves a 12-course tasting menu of artisan food from local producers, with a string quartet backdrop and a Prosecco reception. The 20 tables of eight were sold out in 24 hours.

Craft beer from 9 White Deer brewery will be served on the night. This brewery is located in the heart of the Gaeltacht, in nearby Ballyvourney, and is one of 50 craft brewers in Ireland.

When Country Living called in last week, we were greeted by the head brewer’s T-shirt which read: “This is not a beer gut, it’s a protective covering for my rock-hard abs”.

That told us.

Gordon Lucey was the man in the T-shirt and he runs the brewery with Don O’Leary. The brewery is just one of Don’s business interests, he owns a pub and a restaurant, as well as a farm.

9 White Deer beer really draws upon local heritage in its branding. Irish saint St Gobnait was told by an angel to set up a church and abbey wherever she finds nine white deer, and it was just outside Ballyvourney.

The spent grain from the barley used in the beer is fed to Don’s cattle. This means that if you have a steak in his restaurant, The Mills Inn, and a bottle of 9 White Beer with it, your meal will have come full circle.

The brewery can produce 4,000 pints of beer a day, and with an automatic bottling line which prepares 1,000 bottles in an hour, they really did, in Don’s words, “set it up ready to rock”.

Mountain Man Brewing Company is another local craft beer featuring in the festival, while other food producers in Macroom next weekend include McCarthy’s Yogurt, Coolea Cheese, Sunview Goat’s Cheese and Kilmichael Goat’s Cheese.

During the festival, the town will be alive with music as well as food. Wander around and soak up the atmosphere provided by buskers and don’t miss performances from Declan O’Rourke or the 30-member strong Army Band of the Southern Command.

However, if it’s strictly the food you’re there for, you’ll enjoy the Taste Trail. The €3 tickets for this allow revellers to call into 12 different locations in the town and try a sample of their wares.

With a footfall of 7,000 over the past two years, it’s no surprise that over the weekend the committee are primarily concerned with the trip switches flying, ovens going off, cars being bumped into and “lots of sweat and tears flying around the square”, laughs Jo.

But there’s no doubt that the stress is worth it.

“After the first event people were coming out and saying they hadn’t met that many people in so long,” says Catherine.

It’s not a big drinking festival,” adds Jo. “People say it’s a real social, family day out.”

“The overall aim is to put Macroom on the map as a foodie destination. I think the festival is succeeding in that,” says Don.