PHILADELPHIA was a different place 10 years ago. Election posters for a presidential candidate hopeful named Barack Obama had started to appear around the streets and the City of Brotherly Love, like much of America, was in the grip of a recession. A decade later and the city centre is booming again with visitors and conventions galore.

Food tourism has played a substantial part in this bounce back and coincidentally, feedstuffs, this time of the equine variety, are part of Kevin Babington’s expanding business. Gwynedd Valley, originally settled by Welsh pilgrims in the 1600s lies on the Philadelphia outskirts and is now the Carrick-on-Suir native’s home since he and wife Dianna built up their first stables.