Every now and then, Pat Fitzgerald still wakes in the early hours with a cold sweat on his brow, panicking that he has cows to be milked. On these nights, which have grown rarer over the years, the Kilkenny man must gather his senses and convince himself one more time ... there are no cows in the yard outside anymore.

Up to 2006, Fitzgerald had milked 40 cows at his family farm in Stoneyford, Co Kilkenny, and kept another 120 beef cattle. His siblings had gone off to pursue careers in the city but Fitzgerald had stayed at home to take on the family farm.

Two sites

Since getting out of dairy and beef in the mid-2000s, Fitzgerald has concentrated on his plant nursery business, which he first established on the home farm in the 1990s. Today, Fitzgerald Nurseries has two sites in Kilkenny (including the original family farm), and a micro-propagation laboratory in Enniscorthy, Co Wexford.

The company exports 98% of the ornamental plants it grows to 28 markets all around the world, including the US, Japan, South Korea and Australia.

After 10 years of investment in R&D and plant breeding, we’re now starting to see a return on investment

Yet despite the success of this nursery business, Fitzgerald has spent the last decade diversifying into a new sector entirely where he sees enormous opportunity – plant-based ingredients.

A born innovator, Pat Fitzgerald established a separate company called Beotanics to specialise in the breeding and growing of alternative crops such as sweet potato, yacon, oca and wasabi.

Alternative crops

“Sweet potato is where my interest in alternative crops came from,” says Fitzgerald. “Beotanics is the first company ever to commercially produce a sweet potato variety that can grow in Northern Europe. There’s now farmers growing our sweet potato variety in the UK, Sweden, Belgium, France, the Netherlands and Portugal.”

Over the last decade, Beotanics has invested heavily in R&D to develop new varieties of these alternative crops. It has developed five new varieties of sweet potato that can be grown in Europe and is now rolling out these varieties to growers on the continent.

At present, the EU imports 75% of its sweet potato needs from the US, which is about 350,000t every year.

Curiously, sweet potato is not actually a potato at all but is a root vegetable similar to a carrot.

To breed the new varieties of sweet potato to suit the climate of northern Europe, Fitzgerald spent a lot of time in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, working closely with Louisiana State University (LSU).

“There’s more than 50 years of research and data on sweet potato breeding at LSU and I was able to tap into that,” says Fitzgerald.

Over the last decade, Beotanics has invested heavily in R&D to develop new varieties of these alternative crops

“While it’s mostly grown in North Carolina today, the sweet potato was historically developed in Louisiana. The Louisiana sweet potato is still a famous variety in the US,” he adds.

The five new varieties of sweet potato that Beotanics has developed for Northern Europe are already showing a lot of promise, says Fitzgerald.

“Our new variety of sweet potato is achieving higher yields of 25% to 50% above what growers typically achieve in the US. In the Netherlands and Belgium, farmers are reporting yields of 60t/ha to 80t/ha and even higher yields in France. On O’Shea’s farm in Carlow, the yields are ranging from 55t/ha and 80t/ha. The typical yield in Europe is 30t/ha for regular potato crops,” he says.

In total, almost 2,000 acres (800ha) of Beotanics sweet potato will be grown this year on farms across Northern Europe. The crop is planted much like cabbage in April and must be harvested by early September in Northern Europe, as the crop doesn’t like when ground temperatures drop below 10°C.

Niche

But why go to the bother and expense of breeding new varieties of a niche crop like sweet potato? The margins from selling vegetables and other produce are thin, while sales volumes would be much less than could be achieved with crops such as potatoes, carrots or onions.

Instead of traditional sales channels, Fitzgerald is looking at a bigger picture where he sees a fast-growing global trend for plant-based food.

'Plant-based food is a mega-trend in the food industry right now' – Patrick Fitzgerald.

Rather than sell his sweet potato varieties to supermarkets or wholesalers, the Kilkenny man is targeting major food companies looking for suitable ingredients for new plant-based products.

“Plant-based food is a mega-trend in the food industry right now and food companies are having a big problem getting stable, sustainably produced plant-based ingredients for their new products,” says Fitzgerald.

“I’m growing these alternative crops and processing them down into high-value, powdered ingredients that can be used by companies for a range of applications. These ingredients can be used as flavourings or colourants in food and beverages, or as a coating on tablets by pharma companies.

“Today, most food colouring is made from black carrot and beetroot. However, my new variety of purple sweet potato is a more stable ingredient than black carrot in the manufacturing process. The opportunities for Beotanics are to innovate and replace,” he adds.

Seeing this gap in the market, to supply high-value, powdered ingredients made from plants to large food and drinks companies, has pushed Fitzgerald and the team in Beotanics to look at other alternative crops.

“Our work on sweet potato moved us on to other alternative crops that the food industry is looking at. Yacon is a tuber variety similar to a potato that originates in Peru. We’re developing varieties of yacon that can be grown in Europe with the aim of supplying it as a powdered ingredient to food industry customers,” says Fitzgerald.

According to Fitzgerald, yacon can be processed down to extract fructooligosaccharides (FOS), which can be used by food processors as a natural sweetener and a replacement to sugar. Beotanics is working right now with Enterprise Ireland and Teagasc Moorepark to trial the processing of the crop and the extraction process.

On top of this, Fitzgerald is the first grower in Ireland to commercially grow wasabi, the Japanese horseradish plant that’s notoriously tricky to produce due to its disease-prone nature.

“Wasabi is very niche but it can be used for wasabi coatings and seasonings in a whole range of food products. It’s also used in cosmetics,” says Fitzgerald.

“What I’m looking to do by processing these alternative crops is deliver plant-based solutions for companies in the food industry. I’m targeting companies looking to develop plant-based food products that are low-carb and high-protein. These will be the plant ingredients they need.”

Timing

The timing for Beotanics would appear to be perfect, as more and more companies within the food industry seek to develop plant-based offerings for the flexitarian consumer. Added to this, Fitzgerald says there is no other company in Ireland doing what Beotanics is doing and very few anywhere in Europe that he can see.

The company’s new crop varieties are protected under intellectual property (IP) and it would take competitors years to develop their own varieties. To get to this point, Fitzgerald has invested heavily in his Beotanics business.

Just last month, the company announced a €1m investment to build a new research and development (R&D) centre in Stoneyford, which will include a plant science laboratory, a plant quarantine area and a specialised R&D greenhouse. However, Fitzgerald feels the business is now on the verge of commercial success.

“We spend over €200,000 every year on R&D, which is a very high percentage of our balance sheet. But after 10 years of investment in R&D and plant breeding, we’re now starting to see a return on investment,” he says.

In the last year, the company has started putting out feelers to potential customers in Ireland and further afield. Fitzgerald says his range of plant-based ingredients haven’t got traction to date in Ireland but customers in Europe are already interested.

“We’re in a two-way dialogue with some very large companies in Europe about these products. Continental customers have been very quick to react to our ingredient range because we can grow these products in Europe and work within the existing supply chains of the companies,” says Fitzgerald.

We spend over €200,000 every year on R&D, which is a very high percentage of our balance sheet

“If food companies want to process the plants into powders themselves then we’re happy to let them do that either. What we’re selling is the IP of these ingredients,” he adds.

The future

Working almost like a mad scientist in his Kilkenny nursery over the last decade, Pat Fitzgerald has developed a range of niche crops that could potentially offer huge returns in the years ahead.

The Beotanics business looks perfectly poised to meet the growing demand for plant-based ingredients being created by the flexitarian trend in Europe and North America.

Fitzgerald has taken all the risks to bring this business to where it is today and has invested heavily in R&D to create an innovative range of products.

At the same time, demand is clearly growing for plant-based ingredients in the food processing industry.

With a captive supply of these ingredients, Beotanics will now find itself moving into a new phase where scaling its supply to meet the needs of large food processors will be essential. The company is certainly one to watch over the coming years.