An idealistic streak:

I thought, "here I am, 22 years old. I have a nice car, a good job, a wonderful boyfriend. I want to give something back". If I didn't do it then, I knew I wouldn't get another chance.

Cultural difference:

First of all, the products are different. Take a sauce with vegetables in it; the Irish want the vegetables crunchy, but the French like it all smooth and pureed. And the French don't like food too spicy. There are differences in packaging - for example, purple and blue are colours you find on British supermarket shelves. They don't sell here.

Regional differences:

They might have eight depots and you can negotiate to go into three of them.

Size matters:

People forget that France is twice the size of the UK for the same population. It can take four days to get a product from an Irish plant to a supermarket shelf in the south of France.

Image:

You have products such as smoked salmon and butter where you want to play on that - put little green shamrocks on the label.

Overcoming differences:

If you do get your sales, the French market is very rewarding. The volumes are extremely high.