BusinessPlus.ie looks back at some of the successful Irish food businesses that have featured on the site and in the magazine over the past 25 years.
One of the most inspiring food business success stories in the Business Plus archives has to be Glenilen Farm, a dairy products venture built up by former dairy farmers Alan Kingston and his wife Valerie.
When the couple started making yoghurt as a hobby in 1998, they had no idea the extent to which the venture would take over their lives.
“We never had the intention of building a business from it,” Alan Kingston told Business Plus in September 2019.
“We just wanted to try a bit of milk processing at a home kitchen level.”
Located in Drimoleague in deepest west Cork, Glenilen Farm makes very good yoghurt. So much so that the business has kept on growing and growing since, driven in recent years by product diversification and packaging innovation.
At the time of the Business Plus feature, Glenilen Farm had just launched Live Yogi, a natural yoghurt range for children.
“It makes sense for us to provide a kids’ yoghurt offering, thus ensuring the brand has access to the full family at the point of purchase,” said Kingston.
“Dunnes Stores, Tesco and SuperValu have been very supportive. We are using an existing production line to fill the pots so no capex was required.”
Having refreshed the brand in 2019, the company’s extensive product range today majors on live yoghurt with added fruit and also encompasses butter, cream, cheesecakes and cordials.
In the early days, the Kingstons sold their cheeses and yoghurts at farmers markets, where the products were well received, and in 2002 they built a production facility in the farmyard.
“At that point we decided to make a serious go at building a business.
“Our timing was good, as there was a market demand for foods with provenance,” Kingston noted.
“We started delivering to nearby SuperValu stores and some independent retailers such as Donnybrook Fair.
“We tied down centralised distribution deals with SuperValu in 2006 and Tesco and Dunnes Stores after that.”
A larger production facility was built in 2008, which involved a €2m investment.
In 2019, Glenilen Farm was going through nearly two million litres of milk annually for its dairy products.
The Kingstons had stopped milking their own cows and were renting out their farm land to a neighbour.
“We purchase milk from him and local farmers through Drinagh Co-op. All the milk that we use comes from within a mile of the dairy,” Kingston explained.
By 2019, Glenilen had secured listings with Sainsbury’s and Waitrose in the UK and about 25% of the company’s revenue came from that market.
Its products can now also be found in Boots, Budgens, Ocado and Whole Foods Market in the UK.
The first-ever issue of Business Plus, in February 1998, reported on how Clara Candy had collapsed into receivership partly due to the strength of the punt against sterling.
Peter Cullen founded Clara Candy in 1986 on the ruins of Cleeves Toffees in Finglas, Dublin.
By 1990, the company was being hailed as the country’s leading confectioner having won orders from Menzies, Aldi and Sainsbury’s in the UK.
The staple product was jelly beans, which became a commodity own label supermarket product, extremely sensitive to cost and price changes.
In November 2007, Business Plus featured Peter Cullen again, this time alongside his son and partner Richard Cullen.
Together they had grown another company, Aran Candy, from the ashes of Clara Candy and achieved success by making and marketing high-end jelly beans, branded as The Jelly Bean Factory.
The Cullens set up a manufacturing facility in Blanchardstown in Dublin in 2005.
Within two years Aran Candy was among the largest producers of gourmet jelly beans worldwide, with 98% of its output being exported to 120 customers outside Ireland.
Peter Cullen told Business Plus in November 2007: “Since we started manufacturing in 2005, the cost of the ingredients has increased by 30%.
“We were a little naïve at the start but our productivity has improved. We are always looking at innovation and the ingredients — it’s a constant battle.”
However Cullen had no regrets about going back into manufacturing.
He said: “We had to do it because the growth in demand meant we were having difficulties sourcing the amount of jelly beans we needed.
“When the production was outsourced, there were also issues to do with quality. Most importantly, buyers prefer dealing with a supplier who has control over manufacturing.
“Retailers like WalMart and Tesco take you a lot more seriously when you manufacture.”
In 2012, The Jelly Bean Factory nearly doubled its manufacturing footprint to over 90,000 sq ft with the opening of a new facility in Dublin.
By that time, it had annual turnover of €15.5m with offices in the UK, the US and the Middle East.
Two years later, Swedish confectionary firm Cloetta acquired The Jelly Bean Factory for a reported €15.5m.
Richard Cullen stayed on as managing director of the company until May 2017, by which time it was producing gourmet jelly beans in 36 different natural flavours.
In September, 2019, Business Blus reported that the founders of Fulfil, Tom Gannon and Niall McGrath, had come up with a new snack offering called Cali Cali, which they described as a “guilt-free real food brand”.
They partnered with celebrity chef Donal Skehan to create the range. According to the trio, Cali Cali prioritised mixing California flavours and California health benefits.
The initial product range consisted of sauces and crisps.
Gannon noted at the time that the snack market was growing 3% year on year and that crisps accounted for €140m of the €450m savoury snacking market.
“Cali Cali is a platform brand which we hope will excel in many categories, as we believe it has boundless market potential.
“Our vision for the brand is to focus on two trends — real flavours of the world and healthy snacking,” said McGrath.
“By giving consumers guilt-free savoury snack options, we’re allowing them to shop in a category they would have previously denied themselves.”
Cali Cali was a hit and at the end of 2022 was taken over by Boyne Valley Group.
Launched in 2012, Fulfil was a hugely successful Irish start-up story, selling 15 million bars by 2016.
Gannon and McGrath were bought out of Fulfil in 2018 by Barry Connolly, their partner in the venture.
In 2023, the Ferrero Group, one of the world’s largest confectionary companies, acquired the high-quality vitamin and protein bar company, which at that stage had direct sales in Ireland and the UK as well as distributing to other European and Asia Pacific markets.
In April 1998, Niall Fortune, founder of Eddie Rocket’s, told Business Plus that its success since 1990 was based on precise planning and cautious expansion.
At the time of this interview, an ambitious international expansion programme was building up momentum.
“We’ve done all the demographics and spent about IR£100,000 just to see if the Eddie Rocket’s formula will work abroad.
“I believe it can and it will,” said Fortune.
Rocket Restaurants — with Fortune still at the helm as managing director — is now a group with multiple brands that specialise in franchising.
Operating 45 restaurants and 20 delivery and pick-up kitchens across Ireland, Northern Ireland, Germany and Denmark, it also runs Fast Casual Distribution, its in-house supply and distribution division.
“It’s important not to run at every opportunity and to evaluate every situation individually, even if it means that you have to pass up openings.
“We don’t put too much strain on the existing system. For us to open up a franchise, we need the correct franchisee, the right location and the finances to be in place.
“We also need the right infrastructure to service the restaurant,” he said in 1998.
“We don’t trade on nostalgia anymore; we are an alternative to McDonald’s or Burger King. Our spend is above them and below Captain America’s.
“We will stick to the formula. Running the stores correctly is the way to keep the brand fresh. We have to look after it so it’ll still be here in 20 years.”
Photo: Managing Director Niall Fortune outside Eddie Rockets. photo Photocall Ireland! 19/1/2005