Food stylist, photographer and Pilates teacher Jette Virdi has travelled the world and lived in over 10 countries, building many businesses along the way. But there's more to accomplish: Jette is on a mission to bring back in-person, real life connections filled with love, food and laughter.

She's been collaborating with Folláin Irish Preserves on ‘Folláin Food Heroes’—celebrating the best of Irish producers at destinations like Toons Bridge Dairy in Cork, The Little Cheese Shop in Kerry and Wildwood Vinegars in Mayo. Jette’s just back from her latest Food Heroes journey: a trip to the home of Coolea Farmhouse Cheese and a visit to the Folláin family themselves.

“The beauty for me of entering into a food producer’s world is not just to see the final product, to taste the taste that has won awards or has made something into a pantry staple. But it’s to feel the passion in the way a producer talks about their ingredients, inhale the smell, see the way it makes them feel and to experience their process. The way their mind thinks when making new products, some by happy accident and some with purpose. It’s to feel life moving through the veins of a product as it’s moved from a garden to a shed, to tinker here and to mix there.

To see knowledge shared and passed down is the greatest gift; food shouldn’t be kept a secret, like a club only the elite can enter. It’s for everyone, whether you’re at a Michelin star restaurant or your granny’s table: and seeing this in the work of food producers is truly special.

Take Coolea Cheese in West Cork for example. Dicky Willems’ mum and dad, Helene and Dick senior, first started making the Edam-like cheese when they moved to Ireland, as a way to stay close to their Dutch heritage—and now it’s Dicky’s turn. Day in and day out, they collect the milk, bring it to the warehouse, make the cheese, turn the cheese, press the cheese, stack the cheese and start all over again the next morning. His house is a stone’s throw away, and his parents live in the next house over—and yet this man is sending hundreds and hundreds of wheels of acclaimed cheese all over the world.

While I’ve been hired by Folláin to go and photograph their Food Heroes, I actually had never met the family—so having the opportunity to visit their house and photograph them was a dream come true! Seeing the way any family interacts, and eats, is quite, quite special: and when it’s a family that all work for the family business, something extra lives in the space and there’s an added dynamic. The thing I loved the most about visiting the Folláin family was how invested they are in food—the flavours, ripeness, style.”

@jettevirdi / jettevirdi.com
@follainirishpreserves / follain.ie