Ok, school is back and the summer is officially over in most homes. This year we took a couple of short breaks here in Ireland. All in all it was a good experience. We hoteled in Carna and Ennis which were good bases to tour Connemara and West Clare respectively. We camped in Tralee Westport and Castlegregory which were fantastic destinations in their own right. The beaches and scenery were great, the Irish welcome is still alive and well and the food was for the most part good. With a family of 5 in a recession there wasn't a whole pile of fine dining going on!

Made for us by the guys at Setanta with co-operation from the Munster Rugby Lads.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DesgoVJO0c0

Even though it's still only April, there's a definite feeling of summer in the air. (probably just jinxed it). Smell of fresh cut grass, barbeques, even a few visits to the beach although no swimming just yet. Come on, it's still only April! Anyway, it's the right time to be taking advantage of the longer hours of sunshine and getting plenty of fresh air, exercise and good healthy food. Now that we're all cutting back on spending we've found that we don't necessarily need expensive gym subscriptions or spa treatments to make ourselves look and feel better.

Apologies for the corny title but I always feel that St Valentines day marks the end of the winter hibernation period and the real beginning of a new year. We hope to make more and more connections with you, the people who enjoy our smoothies and juices.
We will be doing this through twitter www.twitter.com/wildorchard and facebook www.facebook.com/wildorchard. If you use these then please become a follower, friend or fan. We promise to follow you too, with your permission of course.

Ever since we started this business in 2001, people have been asking why our OJ tastes so good and what makes it different to the other bottled OJ on the shelf.
Here's a quick guide to what's out there ranked in order of Deliciousness:
1. Freshly Squeezed Orange Juice: This is the ultimate. You take the oranges from your fruit bowl, slice in two Ninja style, squeeze the juice out and drink. Can also be bought from a juice bar, expressed before your eyes.

Whenever I'm chatting to fellow food producers these days it's interesting how often the subject of social media comes up:
Are you on facebook?
Do you twitter, or tweet, or whatever?
Who did your website? It's great/shite/boring/fun.
I saw this thing on youtube......
We all recognise the power of this medium but generally speaking, are struggling to figure out how to engage sucessfully. There are some notable exceptions,take a bow Kieran Murphy of Murphys' Ice-Cream but most of us are dabbling with mixed results.

Competition Closed. Congratulations to Elizabeth Enright!!

Thanks to our friends in Munster Rugby we have 2 stand tickets for the above match and we want to give them away to a deserving Wild Orchard drinking Munster Rugby fan.
Simply answer the following question:
Which Wild Orchard SMOOTHIE flavour do you think is the favourite of the Munster Rugby Squad?
Please email your answer along with your name and email address or mobile number to diarmuid@wildorchard.ie.

Great result and fantastic performance from Munster yesterday. It's been a while coming but the old Munster fire was evident in abundance and shows that there is a lot of life in the old dogs of war that have been much maligned in recent months.
Also glad to say that the consumption of smoothies by the Munster lads is still in the "ferocious" quantities and maybe helping towards those final quarter onslaughts we have become accustomed to this season.
Lets hope for a positive end to the pool stages and fingers crossed for a home quarter final.

This should really be a blog about our smoothies and juices or nutritional information or the benefits of fresh food or the great yoghurts, ready meals and gluten free baked produce we distribute but I can't let the week go without writing my views on the great national debate topic of the week.
My views are:
1. The whinging and moaning must stop. It is becoming embarassing and is not winning us any friends.
2. Yes we were robbed and it's grossly unfair on our players who played with great heart and skill on the night albeit maybe without quite enough precision.

Castle United getting some fuel on board.