A New Life: Importing organic chocolate and giving it an Irish flavour has given a former nurse something to get her teeth into. Michelle McDonagh reports
It was after the birth of her third child in four years that Denise Gleeson made the decision to give up her job as a medical representative and set up a business that would fit in better with her hectic domestic life.
Having always been passionate about good food, and chocolate in particular, the Tuam woman decided to target the 100 per cent organic chocolate niche when she discovered how much of a rarity such chocolate was in Ireland.
Gleeson began to research the chocolate market in Ireland and was amazed when she could not find anybody actually making chocolate in this country.
Although Teagasc did try to encourage her to start manufacturing chocolate, she felt this was far too big a project for her to take on as it is a hugely costly process. Instead, she set about looking for a good organic chocolatier abroad who could make the chocolate for her.
After much searching, she found a little company in Switzerland that hand-produces its own chocolate bars using only Fair Trade ingredients.
She buys in the Swiss chocolate and hand-wraps it herself in Celtic-themed recycled paper.
Gleeson named her company Blakes Organic Chocolate after the family farm in Tuam where she was reared which is situated on what was formerly Blake's estate, dating back to the 1850s.
"With increased awareness amongst the Irish population of 'you are what you eat', we are now more conscious of the ingredients of food stuffs. Blakes Organic Chocolate does not contain any emulsifiers, colourings or preservatives, making it the healthier option. If you want to indulge and eat chocolate, why not eat the best," says Gleeson.
All ingredients used in Blakes chocolate are guaranteed 100 per cent organic from the milk to the whole cane sugar as well as the cocoa, almonds, yoghurt, etc.
It is suitable for coeliacs as it contains no gluten and the only sugars used are unrefined raw and whole cane sugars.
Blakes Organic Chocolate has been granted the Organic Trust symbol which endorses the integrity of the products from the ingredients to the production. Similarly, the chocolate has just been formally granted the Fairtrade Mark which indicates that the growers of the ingredients, eg cocoa and sugar, receive a fair price for their produce.
Originally from Kilcloghan outside Tuam, Denise Gleeson spent a year studying electrical engineering after she finished secondary school in Tuam. However, she quickly realised that engineering was not for her and she headed off to train as a nurse in the Mater Hospital in Dublin for three years.
After qualifying, she spent two years working as a staff nurse, mostly in Galway, but in the early 1990s, it was very difficult to get nursing jobs in Ireland. She was then lucky enough to secure a job as a medical sales rep for pharmaceutical company Pharmacia. which has since been taken over by Pfizer.
In the meantime, she married her childhood sweetheart, Hubert McDonagh, who was also from the parish of Kilcloghan and, six years ago, the couple moved back to Tuam and set up home next to her parents on the family farm.
Four years ago, their first son, Hugh, was born and two years later, Sean, was born.
"I knew that with two very small children, I would not be able to work for a large company. I needed flexibility and I decided to set up a business of my own that could fit in with my young family," Gleeson says.
While she was researching the start-up of her new business, Gleeson became pregnant with her third child and decided to give up her sales rep job altogether to spend time with her children.
Her husband, Hubert, has since gone back to college to study for a degree in medical device engineering at Galway-Mayo Institute of Technology, combining 19 hours of study each week for five years with his work on the family farm. They plan to go fully into organic farming in a couple of years and are also breeding sport horses.
Gleeson intends to market her chocolate to healthfood stores and specialist gourmet outlets. It is already being sold in a number of Galway stores and at itsabagel stores in Dublin.
"When I taste a bar of ordinary chocolate now, I can actually taste the fat. It's very bland in comparison to 100 per cent organic chocolate with no additives," she says.