Anybody who had the good fortune to spend time in Dublin restaurants during the slightly more affordable years of this century will remember Joe Macken. He was the personality-filled serial entrepreneur who brought us names such as Jo’Burger, Crackbird, Skinflint and Bear – the kinds of places that told stories of youth through their menus, playlists and a freshness that felt like it could last forever. Almost.Having birthed it between the 2000s and the early bailout days of the 2010s, Macken was also the one there to act as undertaker to his restaurant empire when things turned sour at the end of 2018. He had recovered from a Jo’Burger examinership a few years previously, but there was no comeback this time and liquidation brought pain for all involved – landlords, suppliers, staff, customers and Macken himself.It’s all “quite a while ago”, an older and wiser Macken says now, rightly. In many ways though, the experience is still with him every day and has become a tool that serves him rather than a black mark to forget. He uses it to inform his consultancy and advisory services to food businesses through the niftily named Mackenations and, from this month, it’s also providing a bank of knowledge and experience to back up his newest venture, Tiller. He describes Tiller as an “independent Irish food certification” programme that verifies the extent to which food businesses – from butchers, bakers and ice-cream makers to Michelin restaurants – follow a set of measurable best-practice standards. He’s launching the venture with his sister-in-law, Mary Healy, a start-up expert.The two can pinpoint the day when the concept was born, when a Dublin cafe run by a friend received a “horrendous one-star review” on Google, where the reviewer acknowledged the quality of the food offering but said it was too expensive. [ Macken ‘consciously uncouples’ from Jo’Burger partnershipOpens in new window ]“A one-star review on Google has such a knock-on effect on your business. It straight away ... pulls you down,” says Macken.The incident – “a Eureka moment” – prompted both to ask what could be done to allow Irish food businesses to clearly show customers “at a glance” that they’re buying Irish food, supporting local economies and just doing things right.They did some consumer research, asking what people expect from Irish food businesses, eg do you think the potatoes or beef will be Irish, and how important would this be to you? The results, albeit in a small survey, were very clear – almost everybody wanted to see their restaurants and other food outlets prioritising Irish produce and for this to be recognised.If a business says it buys Irish, cooks from scratch, looks after its staff and is straight with its customers, Tiller is the mechanism that proves it or doesn’t— Joe Macken“People assume automatically when you eat out in Ireland that the meat is Irish, the chicken is Irish, the eggs are Irish, the dairy is Irish, the bread is Irish, and invariably most of the vegetables as well,” says Macken. “People assume potatoes are Irish in Ireland and it’s not always the case.”Tiller will, all going to the Macken plan, provide a way for businesses to reliably prove their Irish food credentials while also making them obvious to their customers via a physical plaque on an outlet’s door. The reliable proof point is significant, with Macken and Healy basing the endeavour on quantitative, data-based measures across eight “pillars”: Irish meat, Irish poultry, Irish bread, Irish fresh dairy, cage-free eggs, a strong plant-based option, responsible packaging and in-house cooking that doesn’t use ultra-processed shortcuts. [ Underfoot and overlooked: addressing our ‘broken relationship’ with soilOpens in new window ]So far, so impressive. But getting to a point where all eight pillars come together to generate a score is where it gets hard. Participating in Tiller via Tillerindex.com, and seeking the plaque for your front door, will require a business to share two full months of its purchasing records for checks over video call (“like an audit”) at two different points in the year. This would provide the all-important data and is structured to avoid the idea of self-assessment.“If a business says it buys Irish, cooks from scratch, looks after its staff and is straight with its customers, Tiller is the mechanism that proves it or doesn’t,” is how Macken sums it up.He notes, however, that Tiller will also make space for the real life of running a business, allowing, for example, that an Asian restaurant must buy rice from abroad, or that bananas can’t be grown in Ireland. Its emphasis, though, will be on the quality of what is available here. Macken believes food enterprises need to be aware that “people choose silently”, with factors such as food sourcing quietly influencing behaviour. “We can produce unbelievable beef. Our cheese is world class. You know, we are a food island ... that’s a statement of fact. We just really want to get that on the menu and that it’s really clear for people to see it.”[ How Irish restaurants are changing to stay afloat: ‘Less people are going out. Thursday is the new Friday’Opens in new window ]He and Healy see Tiller as an aspirational accolade and “a ladder that you climb up”, with three levels, represented by three dots on the Jesmonite plaque. To get all three, a business would, for example, use organic produce, day-boat fish, whole carcasses and make its sauces from scratch. As in the other categories, it could be a food truck, butcher or caterer as much as a restaurant. “We want people to grow with us over time,” says Macken.The average business is likely to pay just over €1,000 annually for the Tiller treatment, with bigger ventures paying more (the first 50 businesses to qualify will get a discount). Then the physical award itself will cost a little more than €400.“I’m quite conscious it seems like a large cost, but I think it’s really important,” says Macken.The two hope to get 100 food businesses signed up this year and by next year to produce an index showing who has the highest scores, followed by an awards event. Persuading pressed food ventures to embrace the cost and effort of the concept might seem like a large ask at this moment in the economic cycle, but it’s undeniable that Macken knows the sector inside out and has sharp instincts, having run Mackenations for years. This has often seen him assisting business owners in priest-like fashion, having himself experienced the loneliness of being the person left at the top of a tree when it’s threatening to fall. He acknowledges that the environment is tough, but notes, correctly, that every closed restaurant seems to be followed by others opening. He knows all about both ends of the business, with the closing part “very, very hard”, but he also sees that a lot of the beliefs that have gone into Tiller were developed in his Jo’Burger days, thus, perhaps somewhat messily, bringing him full circle. And just to complete the metaphor, he will admit to being drawn to the prospect of running his own restaurant again, all these years later, perhaps using Tiller as an operating template.“If an opportunity came up that was the right opportunity, why would I not do it?” he asks.