Lir enjoys threefold increase in profits

PRE-TAX profits at luxury chocolate maker, Lir Chocolates last year increased threefold to €581,164.

This follows sales at the company increasing by 20% to over €16.5 million in the 12 months to the end of April 30 this year.

Founding director, Senator Mary White (FF) said yesterday that this year “the business and sales continued to increase”.

A company spokeswoman said that the company hopes to achieve sales of €20m in the current year, pointing out that 85% of the chocolates are exported.

Figures just filed by Lir Chocolates Ltd with the Companies Office show pre-tax profits rose from €178,836 to €581,164.

The accounts confirm that company’s gross profit last year increased by 26% from €3.1m to €4m.

Ms White said the business “started in the Dublin kitchen of Connie Doody operating a food mixer and a bowel in Christmas 1986, assisted by myself”.

Today, the two remain directors at Lir Chocolates, which now produces 1,000 tonnes of chocolate at its Navan plant each year.

Ms White said yesterday: “The success of the firm is down to team work and perseverance. We worked 24/7 for 16 years. There was a crisis every day. I had a mission of love to create employment and it gives me great satisfaction to see the numbers there employed today.”

The figures show Lir Chocolates increased the numbers it employs last year from 169 to 196 with staff costs decreasing from €4.98m to €4.83m.

In 2007, the Navan-based company was merged with British confectionery company Kinnerton, a subsidiary of Zetar, a food holding group.

Lir Chocolates’ operating profit last year was €668,909 and interest payments of €87,745 reduced the company’s profits to €581,164.

Explaining the company’s continued expansion in the midst of a recession, Ms White said: “there are always opportunities in the middle of a recession. We started in a recession”.

She said: “We had not done any feasibility study when we started. We had no flight plan and we created a market for luxury chocolates.”

Ms White attributed the increase in profits last year to the company becoming more efficient.

Recalling the early days of the business, Ms White said that Connie Doody made two million chocolates by hand in the first 18 months of the business.

She said: “We always made chocolates from the most expensive ingredients. We were never tempted to dilute the quality of our product.”