Rejection becomes elation for cookie company

A COOKIE dough company — established when two financial workers lost their jobs — has secured a half a million euro deal with Tesco.

Graham Clarke, from Douglas, Cork, and Dubliner Sophie Morris recently pitched their business idea, Kooky Dough, on reality show Dragons’ Den.

However the duo failed to come to an agreement with media supremo Gavin Duffy following the pitch.

Graham and Sophie were looking for a €70,000 investment in exchange for 10% of the company. Mr Duffy initially asked for a 30% stake, settling for 25%. But Graham and Sophie were only prepared to give up 20% of their business.

They didn’t walk away with an investment from a dragon, but have instead secured a €550,000 deal from Tesco. The move will see Kooky Dough create two new Tesco own-brand lines for the supermarket’s stores in Britain and Ireland. It is the first time Tesco has featured an own-brand cookie dough line in Ireland and Britain.

All production will be done in Dublin with the move creating 10 jobs. Graham said it marks a new departure for the Irish firm.

“After a very hectic first 18 months of working extremely hard to establish ourselves, we are very excited about this new project with Tesco. This is an entirely different concept to our original, branded cookie dough which we are already supplying into Tesco Ireland stores.

“This offering will be in the form of a Tesco own-brand product, based on 12 individually-cut pieces of dough in a clear tub,” Graham said.

Founded in September 2009, Kooky Dough is in profit just two years after launching. Sophie is a Trinity College Dublin graduate with a Masters in Economics and Graham has a finance degree from UCC.

Jacqueline O’Neill, commercial director with Tesco Ireland, said the “outstanding quality and originality” of Kooky Dough’s produce were key to the new deal.

“This is a great example of the opportunities that exist for quality innovative and competitively priced Irish products with Tesco,” Ms O’Neill said.

“Kooky Dough has proven a huge hit with our Irish customers and following this success, we are delighted to facilitate exporting it to over 280 stores in the UK where I am sure it will be equally popular.”