Sally Barnes, the founder of Woodcock Smokery, is a huge fan of the Slow Food ethos, which seeks to preserve the pleasures of the table from the pressures of mass-production of foods. The Woodcock Smokery workshop is a 'Centre of Learning' for the Slow Food University of Gastronomy, in Pollenza, Italy.

Information for their site and some photographs were provided by client, all text written by Ireland’s Web Editor, site constructed by Ireland’s Web Service including use of stock photographs from IWS image library. Online research and contacts with relevant sources
of information was carried out by the editorial team.

The site also has an order form system for customers to enquire about the availability of specific products which can then be bought online through PayPal and delivered by courier.

The Great Taste Awards are an annual event celebrating the best in food from the UK and Ireland. Woodcock Smokery has been winning awards there since 2006, and they achieved another resounding success in 2009 in the Great Taste Awards held in Fortnum and Mason’s Food Hall in London. Sally Barnes not only won Best Irish Speciality Award for her wild smoked salmon but also gained a Special Commendation from the judges. Maria Stokes of Bord Bia, sponsors of the Best Irish Speciality Award, made the award to Sally Barnes and celebrity chef Richard Corrigan rushed over from Bentley's Restaurant to present it to her.

"Sally Barnes at Woodcock Smokery in Skibbereen is one of those rare, inspirational human beings you just take your hat off to. Such an intelligent woman, with a profound understanding of the smoke, but what sets her apart is her absolute refusal to smoke anything other than wild fish….. Such are her ethics and perfectionism that she won’t even use fish caught on the seven-day boats, because she won’t smoke a fish that is over twenty-four hours old. 'If a fish stays on ice out on the boats I can’t use it. It spoils before we can finish our process,' she says.   Sally’s whole ethos is that the best things take time. At the smokery each fish is treated as an individual, hand-filleted and dry-salted for the right amount of time to suit its size and fat content. After that it is smoked slowly. Again, for how long is down to the temperature and humidity. After the first stage of smoking, it is pinboned again, by hand, and put back into the kiln again to finish smoking. Some of the salmon is kept back and matured for three months." © The Clatter of Forks and Spoons by Richard Corrigan

Not only did we create new material, photographs and web links on her web site within 24 hours of her receiving her award, but we also drafted press releases and distributed them for her to main media sources. All part of the Irelands Web service!