With Christmas drawing nearer and nearer, spare a thought for the Irish diaspora scattered around the world as they play Fairytale of New York and pine for the old country. Whether they are picnicking on Bondi Beach or lying by a pool in Dubai, the poor souls will be missing their Tayto crisps, Cadbury’s chocolate and Barry’s Tea according to research carried out by B&A and Checkout magazine.
According to the “Diaspora Decides” survey, Tayto Crisps are the ‘most missed’ food by Irish emigrants. Some 42% of the 546 respondents to the survey said that they missed Tayto while overseas, with 18% saying they miss the crisp brand ‘a lot’.  Other brands identified by emigrants include Cadbury chocolate (missed by 39% of respondents, with 18% missing it ‘a lot’) and Kerrygold butter (missed by 46% of respondents, with 17% missing it a lot).
When it comes to tea, Barry’s Tea is missed by 40% of respondents while Lyons Tea is also missed by the same percentage.
“With the Irish diaspora spread far and wide, it’s likely that at least some of the products featured in this survey will be making their way to loved ones on the other side of the world this Christmas,” said Stephen Wynne-Jones, editor, Checkout.
In addition, the survey asked which product categories respondents felt were of a higher quality in Ireland, and which categories were of superior quality overseas.
Here, stout scores highest, with 66% of respondents saying that they feel it is of a higher quality in Ireland. Also scoring highly are Prepacked Bacon/Rashers (with 65% believing Irish products to be of higher quality), Meat (62%), Sausages (61%), Butter (61%) and Milk (58%).
Commenting on the research, Martha Fanning, Director, Behaviour & Attitudes said, “When asked about the quality of Irish products and, more specifically, in what categories respondents feel they can find better quality products in Ireland than abroad, we see five out of the top six products are either in the meat or dairy categories. It seems that our panelists were unperturbed by recent WHO (World Health Organisation) utterances on pork and bacon products – the traditional fry up is safe for now,” she adds.
