Organico Bantry

Organico Bakery produces one of the biggest ranges of Spelt breads, cakes and scones in West Cork, possibly in Ireland. We have been baking with spelt for nearly 5 years, and we now make 4 different kinds of bread (white & brown yeast; white & brown sourdough; white & brown soda & french sticks, which are a mix of regular yeasted spelt dough with some sourdough mix thrown in for added texture & taste). We also make spelt scones, spelt chocolate chip cookies, spelt oat & raisin cookies, spelt chocolate fudge cake, spelt ginger cake, spelt lemon drizzle cake, spelt Christmas fruit cake, spelt banana cake, spelt Tarte Tartin, spelt chocolate tart & spelt pasties.

We have a regular bread stall in Bantry Market from April through to December, and from the stall we sell our breads and cakes as well as Spelt Pizza, Spelt Focaccias with all kinds of yummy toppings.
The flour we have found to be the best for the cakes and breads is Hildegard Health Organic Spelt Flour, which we also sell for home baking in our healthfood shop. We also sell Hildegard pastas, as well as the excellent Biona Spelt Pastas and Finestra de la Cielo cookies and crackers.

Drop in and enjoy! More receipes and tips for cooking and baking with spelt to follow.

At Organico we take your health seriously. It’s no secret these days that lifestyle, diet, nutrition and alternative remedies can all help improve your health. We are regularly asked important questions relating to health matters and in order to provide the best possible advice we are constantly updating our training in natural approaches to staying healthy and learning about the best practices in alternative medicine.

All our staff are trained to IAHS standards which have been worked out in consultation with the Irish Medicines Board to ensure that all staff are trained to give customers appropriate advice. Shop manager Liz Ewing and Assistant Manager Tracey Wilson and Hannah Dare are all qualified to I.A.H.S. Diploma level. Liz Ewing also completed a Nutritional qualification and all the staff (Liz, Tracey, Aki, Tim, & Fleur) completed their I.A.H.S. Protocol Training with outstanding results.
We’ve also recently had extensive beauty therapy training from Dr Hauscka. The Dr Hauschka Skin Care range, which is a favourite of stars such as Jennifer Aniston and Madonna is an amazing natural alternative to putting petroleum derivatives on your skin!
Always consult a Qualified Medical Practitioner!

In Organico Cafe we offer a wide selection for people who are coeliac or are trying to avoid Gluten, dairy, wheat, sugar, salt or saturated fats. Our aims are simple: to provide healthy, tasty and interesting food for everyone. We specialise in vegetarian foods because we believe that they are healthier and we are so enjoying cooking with vegetables, sprouts, beans, pulses and cheeses that we are not thinking of changing at this time, though we will keep you posted! Our customers are not all vegetarians but they all seem to love our food, so we must be doing something right!

All our soups are gluten free, dairy free and wheat free. We make our own stocks so we can be sure of this. Our curries and chilies are the same. We make all our own burgers, falafals and sausages, so we can tell you exactly what is in all of them. We use a lot of unusual grains such as Quinoa which is hugely popular as a salad and is also great in chillies. Our salads are all made fresh and on the premesis and with the exception of obvious ones like Bulgar wheat salad or couscous salad are gluten free.

We also offer a delicious gluten free cake made with apples, rice and millet flours, almonds and cinnamon, which is popular with coeliacs and non coeliacs too.
We can also make breads and cakes to order – we have a great receipe for GF chocolate cake and also for chocolate brownies.

In our shop we offer loads of GF pastas, crackers, bars, chocolate, sauces, and cooking ingredients.

More on this topic to follow.

It’s been a great summer for fruit and we’ve had the best of local mixed with some great exotic fruits. Our policy is to try and keep our food miles down and to that end we’ve had some great local berries this year. The highlight for me was the strawberries. You know, the kind of strawberries that make you tingle because they are packed with flavour – the kind you remember from your childhood.

We’ve also had some delicious exotic fruits to satisfy our customers requirements, however we’re trying to promote local in season fruits and vegetables and educate our customers with respect to the seasonality of supply and the impact of flying food all over the world.

In Organico, Bantry, we have noted a dramatic raise over the past few years in the demand for Organic food from our Irish customers. When our shop first opened in the early 1990’s our customer base was nearly exclusively non-Irish – known as ‘Blow-ins’ in West Cork terms. Now we have more that 75% Irish customers. This shift has occured as Organic food, herbal remedies and natural cosmetics have become more mainstream, and also as our shop has become more familiar and accessible to the local community.

Our father, Alan Dare, who started the shop in the early ’90’s, became well known for his free advice on how to stay healthy and how to use simple and affordable remedies such as cider vinegar to achieve and maintain health. Alan set the tone for Organico Shop from the very beginning as a place where customers are not urged to buy the most expensive product but instead are given all the options and information they need to make informed choices about their own health.

Organico was one of the first, if not the first, healthfood shops in Ireland to sell Dr Vogel’s outstanding Echinaforce (which Alan had to import from the UK as no supplier here in Ireland was selling it). Alan was also one of the first people in the country to recommend Citricidal or Grapefruit Seed Extract. And all this was despite the fact that when he first opened he was determined to sell only foods. Such was the demand that now we have an extensive range of non-food products.

But we are still completely committed to Organic food. Opening Organico Cafe recently is us putting our money where our mouth is. All our veggies, pulses, grains, flours, sugar, coffee, and milk are organic. We use organic mayo, ketchup, vinegars, yoghurt, juices, soya milk, & teas. Click here to see our Menu.

Whether to go for Organic certification for the cafe is an onging question which is complicated by the fact that many of our local organic suppliers are not certified and we like to be able to buy locally. Also there are some items which are not available in the quantities we need in Ireland and which, if we used them now, would mean we had to charge much higher priced for our food. Butter is one of these products – if anyone out there knows of an Irish organic butter supplier who would supply us in bulk please let us know!

Organico aims to be the best health food shop in West Cork, and one of the best in Ireland.

When we talk about ourselves as a health food shop what we mean is a shop that promotes produce that is good for you and for the enviroment you live in – we don’t mean a shop that just stocks brown rice and tofu! Come in and enjoy the exciting range of tasty foods we stock and talk to our knowledgable staff about alternative approaches to health issues.
We believe it is possible for food to be healthy but also tasty and exciting, and do our best to source foods full of flavour and nutrition. We promote all things organic and stock a wide range of organic food, cosmetics, clothes, wines. We also carry Fair Trade products, environmentally friendly cosmetics and home care products, Irish good foods, soaps and veggies and loads of other products which don’t get onto supermarket shelves but that we feel are valuable.
One of the things we are renowned for is the extent of our stock. Our food stock ranges from organic fresh fruit and veg (some local, some imported); olives and cheeses in a small deli, Organic breads and cakes (many made from organic spelt flour – fresh every day from our bakery), to all the juices, pastas, sauces, frozen meals, chilled organic dairy products, spices and store cupboard ingredients a good cook (and a healthy cook) needs.

We have a wide range of natural remedies including homeopathics (Weleda and Nelson’s), Bach flower remedies, herbal remedies (including Bioforce, Lifeplan, Quest,
Irish Organic Herbs and Salus Herbal Juices), vitamin and mineral supplements (Higher Nature, Quest), natural cosmetics (including Weleda, Dr Hauschka, and Burt’s Bees), baby products and natural house care products.

Unlike many large food shops/ supermarkets, in Organico we try to respond to all our customer’s requests and needs, not just those of the majority. Hence if we cannot justify stocking a product because we have had a large amount go out of date, we offer the option of the customer buying a case at a discount. We also offer a discount on bulk orders as a regular feature of the store. This service is especially popular for things like organic rice, Ecover products, trays of soya milk, and 25kg of organic flour. We also try as far as is possible to respond to requests for new products from our customers.

We are always interested in customer feedback and in knowing what people like about their own local wholefood shop. Please add your comments here.

For the best vegetarian lunch in West Cork, visit Organico Cafe in Bantry. We serve a full menu of Organic Vegetarian food all year round – soups and sandwhiches; salads plates and stews; curries and pasties. We also serve delicious organic Fair Trade coffee, cakes, scones and snacks from our bakery next door.

Organico Cafe is part of a family run business based in Bantry, West Cork, the home of Ireland’s gourmet food movement. West Cork is known for its cheeses, seafood, cured fish and meats, so we decided to complement all the interesting meat and fish restaurants by opening an exceptional organic vegetarian cafe for both locals and tourists who feel like a change. We already had a thriving healthfood shop and bakery, and a cafe seemed a logical next step.

Organico Cafe has been a resounding success. Initially trade was slow, which was a blessing as we were only finding our feet. But now, well into our 2nd year, we have made a name for ourselves in West Cork for delicious food which suits both vegetarians and also non-vegetarians who are open to trying something new. We are not completely vegetarian ourselves, which enables us to put together a menu which appeals to pretty much everyone – even some picky Italian students who were visiting the area found the Falafal Sandwhich to their taste!

Although our first focus in on the food, the Cafe is a great meeting place for people interested in living well in West Cork. We host meeting of West Cork Environmental Forum; of West Cork Homeopathy discussion groups, fundraiser evenings and regular Exhibitions of local Artists work. We also have internet available.

Our menu in Organico Cafe changes regularly, but here is a taster…

Today’s Menu

Soups

• Courgette, mint & split pea soup served with fresh spelt bread
• Italian bean stew served with fresh spelt bread

Main Courses

• 3-Bean Vegetable Chilli, served with brown rice, grated cheddar & tsatziki
• Summer Tart (roasted cherry tomatoes & fetta) served with a choice of 2 salads
• Thai Vegetable Curry, served with a choice of 2 salads
• Courgette Fritters, served with a choice of 2 salads

Salads

• Courgette & carrot with a lemon olive oil dressing
• Brown rice with a yoghurt/tahini dressing
• Quinoa with mint & cherry tomatoes
• Thai noodles with a spicy peanut dressing
• Mixed beans with a sweett chilli dressing
• Marinated chickpeas with a garlic/lemon dressing

Sandwiches

• Falafals in a spelt bap with hummus, tahini dressing, tomatoes, cucumber & lettuce
• Lentil burger in a spelt bap with Tsatziki, tomatoes, cucumber, lettuce & relish
• Veggie sausages in a spelt bap with mayo & tomato ketchup; tomatoes, cucumber & lettuce
• Cheese Sandwich: A choice of cheddar, local goat’s cheese, fetta or local Gubbeen cheese in a spelt bap with mayo, chutney, tomatoes, cucumber & lettuce

Salad Plates

• A choice of a 2 or a 3 salad plate with either hummus or a choice of cheeses; served with fresh breads

Fresh Smoothie ( a blend of pure organic fruit – a meal in a glass!)

• Peach, banana & strawberry

Deserts

• Chocolate cake, Lemon Drizzle cake, Ginger Cake, Banana Cake (all made in our bakery using spelt flour)

We pride ourselves in the quality of our ingredients which are primarily organic and/or locally grown.

Val Manning’s Emporium, in Ballylickey, Bantry, is a fantastic place to stop for a glass of wine, a picnic, or to stock up your store cupboard. Organico Bakery supplies Val with a delicious range of cakes, brownies and cookies, so we have regular opportunities to stop and sample! Yesterday we (me and my sisters Rachel and Aoife) stopped off on our way swimming – we never went swimming. Val asked us if we wanted a coffee, which turned into a cheese board, a salami board and a taste of each of the wines he had open! He has a fantastic range of Irish cheeses – he has been in the food business for years and has built up an incredible network of suppliers from all over Ireland. Most of all we enjoyed his enthusiasm for his food and wine; the delight he takes in knowing where the cheeses come from, who makes them and how they taste. We sat outside on his picnic tables and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves! What we didn’t eat was wrapped for us to take home. You do need to have time, as depending on how many other customers there are service can be a little slow (Val isn’t opening a cafe, it’s just a sideline), but as long as the weather is good and you are not in a rush it’s well worth it. 10/10