Write a commentA family owned business started at Derramore House in Bessbrook in 2011 is making great headway in the craft chocolate market with Fortnum and Mason as well as outlets in Brussels and Belgium wanting to stock their chocolate. Closer to home NearyNogs now based in Flurrybridge Business Park, Jonesborough will this week be found in the Food Pavillion at Balmoral Show with their wide variety of chocolate goodies.
As Shane Neary who runs the business with his wife Dorothy and older children points out the whole enterprise started “as a means to an end, for a fundraiser” Shane explains “Our oldest daughter was going to India to do some street work out with the kids in Dehli, so she needed some funds, so spontaneously on the night of the fundraiser, we had an old family recipe for making chocolate, from Dorothy’s grandmother so we decided to make it on the night and we raised a few hundred pounds selling the chocolate at the event.”
“There were people at the event who were getting married and they asked us to do a wedding favour in the same ingredients so we did that, so really it was a bit of a hobby and we started doing small craft fairs and things like that as a surplus income.
“However one of our other daughters August, developed a condition where she had to get blood transfusions in Daisy Hill every three weeks so I had to find alternative employment to help support the family”
Shane and his wife Dorothy decided to go into business together and they threw everything at the business, visiting every craft fair they could find. After a couple of years they used a credit card to purchase some chocolate making equipment.
And so their Bean to bar chocolate enterprise was started in earnest. Last year they acquired some private investment from an individual who liked what they were doing, liked the idea of a family business, saw something different and believed there was a market for it.
Shane continued “We invested in our own cocoa bean roaster, so instead of using a convection oven, basically a domestic oven, we got a cocoa bean roaster specially developed and designed in Germany. It does about 20 kilos in about 20 minutes whereas a convection oven would have done about two kilos in half an hour with temperatures constantly fluctuating and you’d have to open and close the oven.
“We are just in the middle of rebranding our products, we’ve just go a tempering machine which helps you create bars, more varieties of finished products like Easter Eggs. We’re coming into something new altogether. People will recognise what an Easter Egg is or a Chocolate Bar. They may not know what to do with cocoa nibs or cocoa tea, it’s a new kind of thing."
They have been asked by local catering colleges and schools, and foodies who want to come and do a tour, so that’s planned for the near future.
“From an educational point of view for schools, most people haven’t seen cocoa beans or cocoa buds, so we’d be explaining the process, the origin of chocolate”
Shane points out that there’s a huge difference between industrial chocolate and what NearyNogs are producing “Industrial chocolate is highly processed, it’s washed in alkalines, bleached, roasted at super high temperatures, basically all the wrong things you can do with food from a health point of view. It’s like any food stuff, if you burn it you lose the anti-oxidants, the good health properties.
“Chocolate’s a fruit which a lot of people don’t realise. It’s like red wine, wherever it grows, it’s got different flavours. If you keep it in it’s original raw state it has it’s own unique characters. What we are trying to do is bring back the origins of what chocolate is and was.”
Direct Trade
While at present their beans are organic and Fairtrade what they really want to do is direct trade.
As usually happens in life a chance meeting with two guys on a bus between Newry and Rostrevor saw the Neary’s oldest daughter find that potential direct trade link.
She invited them up for a coffee so they started talking about what we were doing, and they said “Oh that’s funny, our family has cocoa farms.”
When they went back to Equador they got in touch and they ended up Skyping back and forward discussing direct trade and how to do that. Due to costs at present NewryNogs can only work with them through a middle man in Europe but they are planning a visit out in the near future to find potential workarounds.
As Shane says “That would be better for the farmer and better for us because we have got a relationship with the farmer. When you Skype them it’s not like a corporate meeting, he’s got his aunties and his uncles, wife and kids, they’re all there.”
With the rebranding they will soon launch a new range of bars, the next step for this ambitious family business with it's feet firmly on local ground. Plans are to have something on the packaging that will attribute to it’s origin being here in the Mourne Mountains, Slieve Gullion and Newry area so watch this space.
The Products
NearyNogs make 40 flavours of soft eating chocolate including Irish Cream, Whiskey Salted Caramel, Chai and they won a Blas Na hEireann food award for their Orange Basil and Poppyseed flavour.
They also make six ranges of hot chocolate including house blend, chilli, chai, cardamom and pure dark hot chocolate.
Where to Buy
Buy at nearynogs.com Finegan and Son in Newry, local markets and craft fairs as well as Studio Souk, Belfast, The Moody Boar, Armagh and The Salty Dog and The Drawing Room, Bangor.
