THE news that two of the best known Irish farmhouse cheeses - Jane and Louis Grubb's Cashel Blue from Tipperary and Tom and Giana Ferguson's Gubbeen, from West Cork - are to be stocked by Marks and Spencer stores, and will also be test marketed in their British stores, is probably one of the most significant advances for Irish artisan foods in the last decade.
There are compromises involved, of course, for the bright livery of the cheeses has been traded in for labels more appropriate to the M&S understated style but otherwise the move into the mainstream marketplace is surely good news.
The contract to supply M&S is also a significant boost for Michael Horgan's distribution company, based in Mitchelstown, which handles most of the Irish farmhouse cheeses and which has won the contract following a £500,000 investment in new equipment for cheese cutting, wrapping and coding.
Indeed, food lovers have much to thank Michael Horgan for, because over the last 20 years his work has made many of the best Irish artisan products available throughout the country, and his support for the cheesemakers in particular has been essential to their growth.
Two other Waterford Foods cheeses - Doolin and Tymere - join Cashel Blue and Gubbeen in this Irish foursome.