The Queen’s had it,” says Allison Abernethy, as she skims a knife along a creamy curl of farmhouse butter – hardly 10 minutes old – and spreads it generously on a thick slice of wheaten bread.
“Barack’s had it,” she continues, “and ... what do you call her?” she pauses for a few seconds, furrowing a brow.
“Oh, Hillary!” she exclaims.
“Not name-dropping or anything,” laughs her husband Will warmly across the breakfast table.
Still, we’re sure that even Mrs Clinton wouldn’t mind the momentary lapse. That’s what’s so endearing about Abernethy Butter’s success, the fact that Allison and Will can hardly believe it themselves.
Just the day before Irish Country Living’s visit to their farmhouse in Dromara, Co Down, they had sent their first delivery to The Neptune in Norfolk – the fifth Michelin-star restaurant they supply in a distinguished list that also includes Heston Blumenthal’s The Fat Duck and Marcus Wareing at The Berkley in London.
“He didn’t even want samples,” says Allison of the Neptune order, still slightly bemused. “He just emailed and said: ‘I’ve heard it’s really good and I want it’.”
“You know, we would lie in bed at night and talk: ‘Imagine Marcus Wareing or Heston Blumenthal wants your butter?’ Because when we started out, we thought: ‘It’s just butter’.”
“We thought we might just supply two or three local shops,” Will elaborates. “And we didn’t think we were good enough for shops, to tell you the truth.”
Butter Up
Will and Allison have been married for 25 years, having first met at a young farmers’ club, and they have two children, Laura (22) and Stuart (19).
Prior to buttering up Michelin star chefs, however, Will kept 100 sheep on the family’s 60-acres and also milked on local farms, while Allison was a practice nurse at the village GP surgery.
It was actually Allison’s father who introduced the couple to butter-making, after hosting a vintage day where he demonstrated the traditional process using an Alfa Laval churn from the 1930s.
As they began to help out with demonstrations at local agri shows, they noticed an appetite for “real” butter, which they made using pasteurised cream (which has 40% butter fat) sourced from Drayne’s dairy farm in Lisburn.
With a granny flat lying empty at home, modest savings and a sign-off from the health inspector, they approached a local MACE and their butcher to trial their product in 2010.
What neither of them expected, however, was a phone call from respected chef Derek Creagh begging for their butter and telling them to go on Twitter straight away.
“And I said: ‘No. I’m too old,’” recalls Allison of her initial reluctance to embrace social media. “And he said: ‘Well, that’s where you’ll get the chefs. They don’t have time for emails and ringing’.
“Our daughter, Laura, helped set it up and Derek was the first person we followed. The next thing, Derek wrote on Twitter: ‘Right guys, you have to try this Abernethy butter, it’s the best butter I’ve ever tasted’. And that was it. The next thing, the computer was red hot.”
Tweet Success
It was through Twitter that Heston Blumenthal’s head chef discovered the Abernethys, with a contingent from The Fat Duck even travelling to Dromara to watch the butter-making process from start to finish.
But of course, it’s taste rather than Twitter that really counts, which was proved when a delegation from Fortnum & Mason sampled their butter on some scones during a meeting with a completely different producer in Northern Ireland.
“The butter wrapper was actually in the bin, but they took it out, brought it back to Fortnum and Mason and said: ‘We have to have this in the shop’,” says Allison, explaining that they now send weekly orders to the high-end London emporium, including their latest product: a smoked butter that won two gold stars at the Great Taste awards.
Other pinch-me moments include featuring on the menu for the GB summit in Enniskillen, and a last-minute call from The World cruise ship looking for 100 kilos of butter to make croissants when it docked in Belfast in 2013.
“You have to have at least £10m in your bank before they even consider you,” says Allison of the exclusivity of the ship and its clientele, joking, “that’s what we are aiming for.”
But while that might take a while, there is no doubt Abernethy Butter has made the transition from hobby to business without any bank loans or grant aid.
As well as employing three staff, Will now leases out the family farm to concentrate on butter-making, while Allison left her nursing job in order to grow sales and marketing.
Not that it was an easy decision to make, especially with two children in college.
“I had been a nurse for 32 years and to give up a job down in Dromara and a regular wage coming in, we hummed and hawed,” says Allison, with Will agreeing that summonsing the confidence to go full-time has been the biggest challenge to date.
“Just thinking that you’re good enough to make a business out of it,” he says simply.
But having realised what side their bread is buttered on, they now have a turnover target of £150,000 for 2015. Maybe it won’t be long until Hillary Clinton and co will be name-dropping Abernethy Butter. CL
For further information, visit http://abernethybuttercompany.com
Facts: Abernethy Butter
• What is it: Handmade butter churned in the traditional style in Co Down using cream from Drayne’s dairy farm in Lisburn, with nothing added but a pinch of salt.• Who loves it: Queen Elizabeth, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton have all tried it, while Michelin chefs like Heston Blumenthal and Marcus Wareing are also fans.• Targeted turnover: £150,000 for 2015.• Biggest costs: After cream it’s courier charges – each parcel costs approximately £25 for packaging and delivery.• Best advice: Look after your customers. Referrals have been key to the success of Abernethy Butter.
The Queen’s had it,” says Allison Abernethy, as she skims a knife along a creamy curl of farmhouse butter – hardly 10 minutes old – and spreads it generously on a thick slice of wheaten bread.
“Barack’s had it,” she continues, “and ... what do you call her?” she pauses for a few seconds, furrowing a brow.
“Oh, Hillary!” she exclaims.
“Not name-dropping or anything,” laughs her husband Will warmly across the breakfast table.
Still, we’re sure that even Mrs Clinton wouldn’t mind the momentary lapse. That’s what’s so endearing about Abernethy Butter’s success, the fact that Allison and Will can hardly believe it themselves.
Just the day before Irish Country Living’s visit to their farmhouse in Dromara, Co Down, they had sent their first delivery to The Neptune in Norfolk – the fifth Michelin-star restaurant they supply in a distinguished list that also includes Heston Blumenthal’s The Fat Duck and Marcus Wareing at The Berkley in London.
“He didn’t even want samples,” says Allison of the Neptune order, still slightly bemused. “He just emailed and said: ‘I’ve heard it’s really good and I want it’.”
“You know, we would lie in bed at night and talk: ‘Imagine Marcus Wareing or Heston Blumenthal wants your butter?’ Because when we started out, we thought: ‘It’s just butter’.”
“We thought we might just supply two or three local shops,” Will elaborates. “And we didn’t think we were good enough for shops, to tell you the truth.”
Butter Up
Will and Allison have been married for 25 years, having first met at a young farmers’ club, and they have two children, Laura (22) and Stuart (19).
Prior to buttering up Michelin star chefs, however, Will kept 100 sheep on the family’s 60-acres and also milked on local farms, while Allison was a practice nurse at the village GP surgery.
It was actually Allison’s father who introduced the couple to butter-making, after hosting a vintage day where he demonstrated the traditional process using an Alfa Laval churn from the 1930s.
As they began to help out with demonstrations at local agri shows, they noticed an appetite for “real” butter, which they made using pasteurised cream (which has 40% butter fat) sourced from Drayne’s dairy farm in Lisburn.
With a granny flat lying empty at home, modest savings and a sign-off from the health inspector, they approached a local MACE and their butcher to trial their product in 2010.
What neither of them expected, however, was a phone call from respected chef Derek Creagh begging for their butter and telling them to go on Twitter straight away.
“And I said: ‘No. I’m too old,’” recalls Allison of her initial reluctance to embrace social media. “And he said: ‘Well, that’s where you’ll get the chefs. They don’t have time for emails and ringing’.
“Our daughter, Laura, helped set it up and Derek was the first person we followed. The next thing, Derek wrote on Twitter: ‘Right guys, you have to try this Abernethy butter, it’s the best butter I’ve ever tasted’. And that was it. The next thing, the computer was red hot.”
Tweet Success
It was through Twitter that Heston Blumenthal’s head chef discovered the Abernethys, with a contingent from The Fat Duck even travelling to Dromara to watch the butter-making process from start to finish.
But of course, it’s taste rather than Twitter that really counts, which was proved when a delegation from Fortnum & Mason sampled their butter on some scones during a meeting with a completely different producer in Northern Ireland.
“The butter wrapper was actually in the bin, but they took it out, brought it back to Fortnum and Mason and said: ‘We have to have this in the shop’,” says Allison, explaining that they now send weekly orders to the high-end London emporium, including their latest product: a smoked butter that won two gold stars at the Great Taste awards.
Other pinch-me moments include featuring on the menu for the GB summit in Enniskillen, and a last-minute call from The World cruise ship looking for 100 kilos of butter to make croissants when it docked in Belfast in 2013.
“You have to have at least £10m in your bank before they even consider you,” says Allison of the exclusivity of the ship and its clientele, joking, “that’s what we are aiming for.”
But while that might take a while, there is no doubt Abernethy Butter has made the transition from hobby to business without any bank loans or grant aid.
As well as employing three staff, Will now leases out the family farm to concentrate on butter-making, while Allison left her nursing job in order to grow sales and marketing.
Not that it was an easy decision to make, especially with two children in college.
“I had been a nurse for 32 years and to give up a job down in Dromara and a regular wage coming in, we hummed and hawed,” says Allison, with Will agreeing that summonsing the confidence to go full-time has been the biggest challenge to date.
“Just thinking that you’re good enough to make a business out of it,” he says simply.
But having realised what side their bread is buttered on, they now have a turnover target of £150,000 for 2015. Maybe it won’t be long until Hillary Clinton and co will be name-dropping Abernethy Butter. CL
For further information, visit http://abernethybuttercompany.com
Facts: Abernethy Butter
• What is it: Handmade butter churned in the traditional style in Co Down using cream from Drayne’s dairy farm in Lisburn, with nothing added but a pinch of salt.• Who loves it: Queen Elizabeth, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton have all tried it, while Michelin chefs like Heston Blumenthal and Marcus Wareing are also fans.• Targeted turnover: £150,000 for 2015.• Biggest costs: After cream it’s courier charges – each parcel costs approximately £25 for packaging and delivery.• Best advice: Look after your customers. Referrals have been key to the success of Abernethy Butter. 
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