West Cork firm hits on a cracking idea for success

Sending Italian- style biscuits to a French cosmetics company based in Belgium is just one example of what an enterprising West Cork company can do.

Regale Biscuits in Clonakilty specialises in hand-made cookies and biscuits while also making own-brand crackers for Sheridans Cheesemongers. One of its signature products is Baci di Dama (Lady’s kisses) which it sold by the thousand this year to a hamper company which shipped them to Belgium where l’Oreal used them for promotions.

Employing a staff of five, Regale is working on plans to develop exports while also finalising negotiations with a multiple which is looking for a supply of own-label biscuits to go on the shelves in dozens of stores by November.

Regale founder and managing director, Richard Graham-Leigh is now working on new packaging and contemplating taking on three additional staff.

He says that the level of success is surprising, given the fact that it started out as a tiny home enterprise and the operation almost didn’t survive when a bakery, which was contracted to make its products, closed suddenly last autumn.

But Mr Graham-Leigh found a premises in Lisavaird in Clonakilty, took on staff, filled Christmas orders and the company has both survived and grown.

The Regale story begins with Mr Graham-Leigh and his wife Jane falling in love with West Cork, buying a run-down cottage in Dunmanway and needing money to repair it. He had been a London chef while she had worked for HR in Unilever.

Although the move to Ireland in 1998 was intended as retirement, Mr Graham-Leigh started making hand-made cookies for Clonakilty market in 2003. “We made chocolate chip cookies, orange shortbread and Baci de Dama, put them on a wallpaper table and they sold out in an hour.” After that they converted a barn at the farmhouse into a kitchen and started a small business.

“We had a lot of luck and were in the right place at the right time. Inchydoney Hotel became our first corporate customer and Urru, an artisan food store in Bandon, became our first retail customer.”

The couple expanded the range to include traybakes and French patisserie and sold to a number of farmers markets and restaurants in Cork county.

“But we found by 2009 that we were doing a lot of work with little return and decided to give it up or take it more seriously,’’ says Mr Graham-Leigh who then enrolled in a programme for small producers with the help of the West Cork Enterprise Board.

“We refocused, reduced our range to cookies and biscuits, branded the products and sourced packaging. We called them Cookies of Character and launched at SHOP at the RDS in September.”

Looking for a distributor in 2011 they approached Sheridans Cheesemongers which distributes a range of Irish artisan foods to their cheese customers. Shortly afterwards Sheridans asked Mr Graham -Leigh to develop hand-made crackers “I spent four months perfecting recipes for Irish brown bread crackers, mixed seed cracker and rye and linseed crackers. Sheridans launched them at SHOP in Sept 2011.”

Two years later around half of Regale’s income comes from selling crackers to Sheridans which exports them to the US, Australia, the UK and Scandinavia. During this time Sheridans has distributed Regale’s cookies to speciality food stores around Ireland and the company has also sold to hamper companies.

Within a year of signing with Sheridans Mr Graham-Leigh found that the company, which was still operating from a converted barn , was struggling to keep up with demand.

In Feb 2012 he outsourced production to a bakery in Dunmanway which had spare capacity. This worked well until the bakery closed in October and Regale found itself without the means to fill its Christmas orders.

Taking on three staff, Regale restarted production in the converted barn running double shifts. But in November the company found a new premises in Clonakilty and shifted production there.

“We were sending out two or three pallets a week each containing an average 1,728 boxes of crackers. We were making the crackers by hand, filling the boxes by hand and didn’t get much sleep.”

Since then Regale has invested in new packing machinery and now employs a staff of five at the 2,500 sq ft premises.

The company is working on developing new packaging for its Cookies of Character with a view to developing exports with the help of Sheridans.

Mr Graham-Leigh is expecting significant growth next year. “This year our turnover will have quadrupled since 2010 and in 2014 we expect it to increase by a further 25%”