With a secret recipe passed down through generations, Sneem Black Pudding is a rare product which in fact has EU recognition for its’ uniqueness.

Now the famed product has added another accolade to its bow with a win at the 32nd Irish Food Writers’ Guild Food Awards.

The awards were presented to food producers who put sustainability and ethical food production at the heart of their product.

Peter O’Sullivan Butchers was singled out for one of just eight awards presented this year by the Irish Food Writers’ Guild for its famous Sneem Black Pudding.

This is a traditional blood sausage crafted in small batches using locally sourced ingredients including fresh blood and a recipe passed down through generations, resulting in a rich, earthy flavour with subtle seasoning and exceptional provenance.

Sneem black pudding is made in South Kerry’s Iveragh Peninsula by Peter and his family, who runs a third-generation family-operated craft butchers where he personally sources stock from local farmers and processes them in his own abattoir.

This unusual style of Irish black pudding has been made in the village of Sneem for several generations and is continued today by Peter and his neighbouring butcher Kieran Burns, both to different family recipes but in a similar style.

With the help of Michael Gleeson of Gleeson Rural Development, in 2019 Peter and Kieran secured Protected Geographical Indication status for Sneem Black Pudding.

That PGI status guarantees a pudding free from artificial colours, flavours, bulking agents and preservatives; and made with sheep, cow or pig blood together with beef or lamb suet, oatmeal, onions, seasoning and spices.

It is handcrafted in small batches, and gently tray-baked in blocks rather than boiled in a casing and is commonly sold in blocks.

Both butchers make their pudding to their own family recipes.

Meanwhile, Murphy’s Ice Cream was singled out for its focus on local, inventive flavours, using milk from the Kerry Cow and ingredients sourced from nearby farms, creating indulgent, high-quality treats that celebrate the best of Kerry.

Irish brothers Sean and Kieran Murphy were born in New York City and started Murphy’s Ice Cream in Dingle in the year 2000. Their goal was “to make the best ice cream in the world.”

Over the next two years their business quickly grew, the ice cream became more refined, and customers from outside of Kerry became more insistent on having Murphy’s Ice Cream closer to home.

In 2005, Murphy’s Ice Cream opened a second shop on Main Street in Killarney. In 2010, they scooped up the old Haagen Daz café space on Dublin’s Wicklow Street.

Twenty years later, they have a total of six outlets and an arsenal of twelve core flavours, plus seasonal options, and a few of those flavours are also available in specialty grocers.

In support of one of Ireland’s oldest indigenous breeds, Murphy’s Ice Cream only uses milk from the Kerry Cow farmed by Colm Murphy in West Kerry.

Murphy’s Ice Cream flavours have always been inventive; pioneering ingredients which are nearly all locally sourced, from free-range eggs supplied by local farmers to sea salt harvested off the Dingle coast, locally grown seasonal fruits, honey from the Sheehy beekeepers in Camp, County Kerry, McCambridge’s Brown Bread, Dingle Gin and Teeling Whiskey.

Murphy’s Ice Cream has won numerous awards and accolades over the years, but what Sean and Kieran have always really been interested in is exciting and delighting their customers.

Now in their 32nd year and with no applications or submissions allowed, all eight winners of the 2025 IFWG Food Awards were chosen based solely on quality, integrity, and a commitment to genuine sustainable practices.

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