'We were hit with Christmas overnight, and for two weeks we have delivered constant Christmas volumes."
This is how Tom Keogh describes demand over the past few weeks since measures were first introduced here in order to curtail the spread of the coronavirus.
"We have never seen the likes of it," the managing director of his namesake potato and crisp business says.
The native of north Co Dublin's market garden belt puts the surge in demand down to some panic-buying by customers, but also the time people now stuck at home have to prepare meals: "People are realising that potatoes are a really healthy food and a fantastic versatile product to have with family meals."
Coping with such a sudden jump in demand is not easy for the family business, which has been around for over 200 years.
"Christmas and fresh potatoes is massive, it would take us months of planning to prepare for it [in terms of] packaging, stocks; even resource planning takes months to prepare," he says.
So the response to this month's surge in demand had to be immediate.
"It was like somebody flicked a switch and the whole food service industry (restaurants, pubs and cafes) was just stopped in Ireland, and all of that volume now has to go through the multiple retailers; the Dunnes, SuperValus, Tescos, Aldis, Lidls," Keogh says.
The business is "under pressure" to supply them. "But in the background [for] those guys, the logistics that's required to keep ahead of that... the fact that we have such strong retailers here is really benefiting us, the fact that we have centralised distribution is really benefiting us. It means that we are able to get the food through the supply channels on to the retail shelves."
The father of two says keeping produce on the shelves is a team effort.
"People say business is all about people; now more than ever it is all about people and we are battling day-to-day trying to keep our staff well, healthy, motivated. We have a fantastic culture here and a brilliant team," he says.
With the increased demand, there are some concerns of a shortage of potatoes here.
Not least because farmers here were hit by a bad winter, which has impacted crop yields.
"If demand keeps going the way it is going, there definitely will be a shortage of potatoes," Keogh says.
However, he hopes "a little bit of common sense will come to play over the next few weeks and the demand on fresh potatoes should start to calm down".
While Keogh's is benefiting from the resurgent demand for potatoes on supermarket shelves, its snacks division which makes crisps has been badly hit as cafes and restaurants shut, and more and more people work from home.
The food service business accounts for around a third of Keogh's sales.
Stocking up: Shoppers bought in bulk as the crisis hit
"That has all been decimated, but thankfully the volumes in the big retailers have made up for that loss."
Keogh's as a business has been tempered by previous crisis. The 200-year-old family business was long focused on market gardening and supplying fresh produce into the Dublin market.
Keogh says his father and uncle were "very innovative", being among the first in the country to supply washed potatoes and to cold-store the produce.
When the current generation - Tom, his brother Ross and cousin Derek - joined the business in the mid-2000s, they came into a challenging environment.
"You had potato consumption in drastic decline, consumer perceptions changing and the market for our products was disappearing," he says.
The snack food business, which was launched in 2011, was born out of those challenges.
The Keoghs started researching the snack food market in 2007, having seen the emergence of the premiumisation of snacks and people's growing interest in the provenance of their food. "It took about three to four years to put all that together, from a branding point of view to building up the factory on the farm," Keogh says.
Expecting people to pay for a premium food product can be difficult, and especially so in the middle of a recession.
"At the time, there were a couple of things that really fell into our lap. Irish people were entertaining at home and to do that they were buying premium sharing snacks," he says.
In addition, "there was a massive sentiment at the time among consumers that if they supported Irish businesses that they could buy themselves out of this recession. It helped our company".
The idea of launching a new venture might have been daunting. But Keogh is very pragmatic that standing still wasn't an option.
"With the figures we were seeing here on the farm, we had to do something," he says.
"But there was really no option. Yes, it was daunting, it was worrying writing those first cheques for machinery etc, getting into a category that was probably the most competitive in the supermarket. It is dominated by one or two global players so for us getting into that sector was hugely risky, but thankfully the Irish consumer supported us."
Having made the decision and produced a product, the next hurdle facing the business back then was getting on to the supermarket shelves. This was "extremely difficult" at the start.
"What we did was there was a local carpenter here at the time who was not too busy in the middle of the recession and I employed him to start making wooden display stands for us to put on the supermarket floors." Customers, Keogh says, "really bought into it".
"We got to a point where the sales were there for us to merit having prime position on the shelves."
For Keogh, the biggest learning from the early days of moving into the snack business was that it doesn't matter how small of a business you are, "once you have a really great product behind you, with a customer that admires you and is willing to buy it, [then] you can go toe-to-toe with some of the biggest food companies in the world and come out successful".
It's all about the quality of the product, he reiterates.
Having "literally stepped off a tractor and into the snack food business", Keogh is very forthcoming in the advice he would give to anyone in the same profession who may be considering diversifying their business.
"Firstly, and this is the biggest shift change a farmer needs to make if they are doing that, they need to look at the consumer.
"What I find is this is one thing they do not do.
"You have to go to the very end consumer of a product, find out what their needs are and then tailor your offering to suit that.
"It is not about producing what is easy to produce, it is about producing what the consumer wants and that is a shift change with regards to mindset when it comes to agriculture."
His second piece of advice is to establish a good relationship with your bank.
"Because the reality is getting into some of these businesses, it takes a lot of time to actually get them profitable," Keogh says.
These days, the company has become very successful. As well as its strong position in the potato and snacks market in Ireland, Keogh's crisps are also exported to 20 different countries.
Export sales will account for 20-25pc of turnover this year, with the biggest markets outside Ireland being the United States, followed by the UAE.
"The target market overseas is the local premium consumer who recognises a quality snack food and buys into the Irish origin of a product."
While the crisps and popcorn can be found on the shelves in Northern Ireland, Keogh made the decision to pull out of Britain in 2016.
"We were at a stage where it was get big or go home; there was too much uncertainty in the market so we decided to put our focus into other countries," he says.
He adds that selling the products in Northern Ireland is "a completely different conversation compared with selling into a retailer in the UK".
Like all businesses, Keogh's main concern right now is getting through the coronavirus pandemic.
Prior to its outbreak here, the company had so many plans, he laughs ruefully.
Instead of being in the middle of a strategic review, its focus now is "keeping the door open".
Once this current crisis is all over, the firm hopes to open a new potato factory towards the year-end.
On the snack food side, "we have a lot of new product development coming to market. Please God, if the curve continues to flatten, things will be back to normal by the end of May", he says.
On a lighter note, working for a family business can, Keogh says, "be the best and worst place in the world".
"Obviously there are a lot of heated exchanges," he says laughing. "But what I have come to realise is that a lot of the arguments you have in a family business are actually about doing it better and they are fantastic arguments to be having."
For now, all the focus is to keep family and staff safe and continue feeding the nation.
