www.irishfoodmagazine.com

IRISHFOOD: Please tell us the background to establishing Mór Taste?

Felix: Mór Taste really started long before it became a business. I had been making jam at home for years because I had to reduce my own sugar intake, and most jams on the market were full of sugar, concentrates, or sweeteners. I wanted to use more real fruit, and I discovered that the more fruit I used and the less sugar I added, the better I thought the product tasted.

My professional background is in fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) and food retail, so I also knew there was a much bigger category opportunity there. Consumers were offered either traditional high-sugar jam or products that reduced sugar by using sweeteners or concentrates. I felt there should be a third option: a genuinely fruit-led product.

Well Preserved Ltd was established in 2023 and Mór Taste was developed around a simple idea: maximise fruitiness and minimise sweetness. The word ‘mór' means 'big' in Irish, which fits the philosophy perfectly: more fruit, more taste, less sugar.

 

IRISHFOOD: Can you talk about the reformulation of Mór Taste and the the associated challenges and opportunities? 

Felix: The challenge is that sugar in traditional jam does much more than make it sweet. It contributes to preservation, texture, gel formation, and consistency, so simply taking sugar out does not work. We had to rethink the product architecture rather than just reduce the sugar. The current range contains 85 per cent real fruit; uses only fruit, sugar and pectin, and achieves an ambient-stable, soft-set preserve with substantially less sugar than traditional jam. Several flavours are also high in fibre and achieve Nutri-Score A.

That work has resulted in a patent-pending formulation and process. For the communicating the USP, we learnt to stay away from “light” or “reduced” claims. We use more real fruit and we believe that we have a very unique taste profile, so we want to focus on the taste and fruitiness much more than on the actual sugar reduction. 

 

IRISHFOOD: Well Preserved has positioned Mór Taste as Ireland's 'fruitiest' jam brand. Has it been challenging to compete with the traditional household jam names?

Felix: Absolutely. Jam is a mature category with brands that consumers have known for generations and as a small, new company you cannot compete on heritage, advertising budgets or shelf presence. At the same time, it’s difficult to tell consumers the product USP when some products use fruit juice concentrates and market their products as ‘100 per cent fruit’. We have to give people a very clear reason to switch. For us, that is immediately visible: 85 per cent real fruit, a much less-sweet taste, and a short ingredient list. Once consumers taste it, the proposition becomes very easy to understand. We have seen very strong repeat performance through retailers including Tesco, Lidl and Aldi, and we recently passed the milestone of 200,000 jars sold.

The encouraging part is that we are not simply taking consumers from another premium jam. We regularly hear from people who had largely stopped eating jam because they found it too sweet and have started buying it again because of Mór Taste and the reduced sweetness.

 

IRISHFOOD: Is the product being exported currently, and what are your ambitions in this area?

Felix: Ireland remains our core market, but we are now at the point of transitioning from a successful Irish brand into an international one. Continental Europe is a major focus. We have been working extensively on Germany and Switzerland over the last year, including adapting packaging and technical specifications for those markets. We have been in discussions with a number of major retailers and distributors in Germany and Switzerland. The UK is another logical market because of its proximity, familiarity with Irish food brands and the similarity of the grocery environment. The ambition is to establish a small number of strong markets with the right retail and distribution partners, demonstrate that the proposition travels, and then build from there.

 

IRISHFOOD: Do you think this healthier jam offering will absorb well to international markets? Which markets do you see as most receptive to reduced-sugar, clean-label fruit products, and why?

Felix: Yes, because the underlying consumer problem is not uniquely Irish. Traditional jam is an unusually sugar-heavy category in every market. And the competitors' solutions in most markets is similar to Ireland (substituting sugar with concentrates or sweeteners rather than using more real fruit). This makes our concept easily understood in other markets. We have conducted market research in Germany and received very positive feedback on differentiation and purchase intent.

Germany and Switzerland are particularly interesting because consumers are using a lot of the category already, and they are very engaged with ingredient quality, clean labels and nutritional credentials. France is also highly relevant: fruit spreads are an established part of the food culture and Nutri-Score has made nutritional quality very visible to consumers. Three of our core flavours achieve Nutri-Score A and the other two achieve B under the new algorithm, which is highly unusual within the jam category. Ultimately, though, I think taste is what makes the proposition internationally transferable. ‘Less sweet, more fruit’ is very easy to understand in any language.

 

IRISHFOOD: In addition to the jam products, you now offer a range of spreads. Can you tell us more about these innovations and their ingredients?

Felix: We have also developed a range of indulgent nut and chocolate spreads using the same underlying philosophy: start with excellent ingredients and keep the recipe as simple as possible while using more real ingredients. For example, our Hazelnut & Chocolate spread is essentially built around just hazelnuts (more than 60 per cent) and chocolate rather than palm oil or sugar. The concept is not to turn indulgent foods into diet products. It is to remove unnecessary complexity and let the core ingredients deliver the taste. However, we are being selective about how quickly we roll those products out because ingredients such as hazelnuts have become expensive, and maintaining both quality and an acceptable consumer price is essential.

What is NutriScore? 

Nutri-Score is a colour-coded nutrition label from A to E that characterises the overall nutritional quality of foods.

 

IRISHFOOD: Do you have any new products in development?

Felix: Quite a few. We are developing products with a similar profile (more real ingredients, less sugar, no nasties) with Teagasc (Agriculture and Food Development Authority) working through the technical challenge of achieving the right texture and shelf stability at much lower sugar levels. I can’t say yet what products or categories we’re working on, but there are some exciting concepts in development at the moment. 

 

IRISHFOOD: Ireland has built a strong reputation for quality dairy, beef, and seafood exports. How do Irish food innovators in the condiments and spreads category leverage that same 'Irish' credibility abroad?

Felix: Irish food and, overall, Ireland itself already carries strong associations internationally with quality, trust, food safety, and good ingredients. Smaller Irish food businesses can benefit from that reputation even when they are working in categories that are not traditionally associated with Ireland. For Mór Taste, the Irish story is less about claiming that every berry comes from Ireland and more about the company behind the product: Irish product development, Irish entrepreneurship, high manufacturing standards, and a very clear philosophy around food. There is also something attractive internationally about Ireland producing genuinely new ideas in categories where consumers might traditionally expect innovation to come from much larger markets.

 

IRISHFOOD: What advantages does an Irish artisan producer have when competing on shelves in exports markets? Will you have to rebrand the Irish name when selling abroad or is the Irish name an important part of the overall product offering?

Felix: Being small can actually be an advantage when you are trying to change a category. We can move quickly, test ideas, listen closely to consumers, and make decisions without having to protect a large legacy portfolio. At the same time, we need to prove that we can offer the consistency, service and scale expected by major retailers. That is why moving from very small-scale production into established commercial manufacturing has been such an important part of our development. I would definitely not change the Mór Taste name for export. 'Mór' is Irish for 'big', and that is part of the brand story: big on fruit, big on taste. In markets where consumers are not familiar with the Irish language, 'mór' is understood as 'more', which has a similar meaning to it, and we specifically had this in mind when creating the brand. It’s recognisably Irish, but it’s understood more widely.

 

IRISHFOOD: Where do you source ingredients from? How do you balance working with local Irish growers against the seasonal realities of fruit availability when planning for year-round export supply?

Felix: Fruit sourcing is one of the most important parts of the business because at 85 per cent fruit, there is nowhere for poor-quality raw material to hide. For the core range, we source fruit depending on flavour, quality, consistency, availability and commercial viability. Where Irish fruit is available at the right quality and scale, this would be our priority, and local sourcing can work particularly well for seasonal or limited products. 

 

IRISHFOOD: You are exhibiting at SIAL Paris 2026. Why is this important and what do you hope to achieve from being there? 

Felix: SIAL is particularly important for us because Mór Taste is now moving from proving itself in Ireland to building an international business. We are exhibiting independently in the start-up area (hall 6, stand ST016); that environment is a very good fit because the proposition is fundamentally about category innovation. Our main objective is commercial. We want to meet retailers, distributors and other partners who see the opportunity for a fruit-led, less-sweet alternative within the jam category, particularly in continental Europe and the UK.

SIAL also gives us the opportunity to benchmark ourselves against innovation from around the world and to introduce some of the next-generation Mór Taste products we are developing.

 

IRISHFOOD: Are there other trade fairs on the horizon for you? 

Felix: SIAL is our main international focus for 2026. At this stage I would prefer to do a smaller number of events properly than attend exhibitions simply for visibility. We will continue to take part in selected Irish food and awards events, and we are assessing which international exhibitions make most sense for 2027 as our export pipeline develops.

​

Tastes Mór-rish 

Felix shares his favourite Mór Taste jam, and how he likes to eat it: “My personal favourite is our sour cherry. I love the intensity of the flavour and the balance between the natural tartness of the cherries and the sweetness. I tend to use it almost more like a fruit compote than a traditional jam: a spoonful swirled into Greek yoghurt is probably my favourite way to have it, and it has become my version of a healthier late-night treat.”