A look at an innovative company

Skelligs Chocolates

KERRY-BASED artisan chocolate producer Skelligs Chocolates is about to take the idea of savoury-sweet chocolate to a whole new level. Having successfully developed sea salt, and gin tonic flavoured chocolate bars in the past, owner Colm Healy and his team are now working flat out on the development of a chocolate containing that most trendy of current food ingredients – seaweed.

“Water and chocolate do not mix so the challenge is one of chemistry – we need to extract the essence of the flavour without the water,” Healy says, adding that there is quite a niche market for savoury-sweet chocolate. “We also faced this challenge when we were developing the GT bar – and used crushed juniper berries to create the flavour, not gin.”

Healy, who comes originally from an IT background, bought Skelligs Chocolates for around €250,000 in 2004 as a going concern and spent six years developing new products and building up the business. In that time, he invested an additional €125,000 on equipment and upgrading the facilities.

In November 2010, disaster struck. There was an electrical fire in the company’s premises during a storm and everything was destroyed. Healy considered throwing in the towel, but after a difficult few months he decided to pick up the pieces and rebuild. The company moved into a purpose-built 6,000 sq ft facility at the end of last year.

Healy saw the fire as the company’s opportunity to be innovative and to drop things that were not working. He changed numerous things about the product and its packaging, including reboxing to hit key price points for cost-sensitive buyers. New chocolate letters and numbers products have been introduced under the company’s other brand, Cocoa Bean, and Skelligs is also launching a new simnel-flavoured truffle in time for the Easter market. To make the most of the new premises, Healy is planning to open a cafe and to start a chocolate school.

The cost of the rebuild is close to €1 million – about half of this is coming from insurance and the rest is being financed by the Healy family and the bank. A further €50,000 will be required to fit out the café, and Healy has ear marked around €35,000 for marketing activities to support the two brands over the next year.

- OLIVE KEOGH