Diary products: A farm business in Co Mayo is the first in the world to produce a revolutionary probiotic butter for supermarket shelves.
The Cuinneog Butter brand contains a blend of friendly bacteria, which works like other probiotic products in helping the digestive and immune systems. The Butler family in Balla near Castlebar began making butter and buttermilk products under the "Sheila's of Mayo" brand in 1989.
But they recently diversified into the Cuinneog Butter to capitalise on the emerging market of pro-biotic yoghurts and drinks.
Tom and Sheila Butler named the product after the Irish word for "churn" - cuinneog, and use stainless steel churns unlike the wooden ones of olden times.
Tom said: "Ireland has a long tradition in the art of butter-making since the Celts first introduced the skill in 200-150 BC. We started it 16 years ago because we had a small farm and wanted some extra income." "Consumers with get an authentic and traditional flavour from the butter as well as all the health benefits."
Hundreds of litres of pasteurised cream are delivered to the Butler family farm each week by Connacht Gold Co-op.
The cream that makes the butter goes through a four-day manufacturing process of heating, souring, cooling and churning - before being packaged.
The Butlers, who employ ten full-time staff, have just found a distributor for the butter and it will hit the shelves of all he main multiples this month.
Sheila's already produce several dairy products like buttermilk and award-winning farmhouse country butter which is exported to the UK, Germany, France and Italy.
- (PA)