M&D rolls the dice in bid to expand outside county

The Waterford blaa, a variety of bread originally brought to Ireland over 300 years ago by French Huguenots, is now making its way back to France in frozen form.

Spearheading a bid to gain national and international recognition for the blaa is Waterford company M&D Bakery, which saw in the small white doughy bun roll, which is unique to Waterford, an opportunity to combat the recession.

Now selling frozen blaas to hotels and restaurants around Ireland and to an Irish pub in Paris, M&D has this month been named as Small Business of the Year by Waterford City Enterprise Board and nominated for the National Enterprise Awards.

Up until 2007, the blaa was just one of the products produced by the company which employed 14 staff and sold fresh bread to multiples, hotels, restaurants and canteens across the city and county.

“We have seen a slide in business since 2007, factories closed and downsized, canteens closed and sales fell.

“We decided that in order to survive we needed to expand our horizons,” explains Dermot Walsh, who set up the bakery with his brother Michael in 1984.

Looking at the market they began to see the blaa in a new light. “At the time there was an upsurge in interest in indigenous Irish foods and we realised that the blaa was quite unique in being the only indigenous bread made commercially on a daily basis.”

Seeing an opportunity to expand sales outside Waterford, the company first had to overcome the difficulties posed by the short shelf life of the blaa, which contains no preservatives. Over the last four years, the company has invested in packaging and freezer technology so the blas can be sold anywhere in the country and exported.

M&D set out to popularise blaas in 2008 by taking them to farmers’ markets and food festivals around Ireland, selling to producers who used them in burgers and sandwiches. “We got interest from a distributor who asked us to look at freezing. We researched this and sent our first trial batch in late 2009. We started with one distributor and now have four, selling to the foodservice industry around the country. We have good sales in Dublin and some in Northern Ireland.”

As part of the plan of campaign, M&D Bakery joined with three other bakeries in 2009 and formed the Waterford Blaa Bakers’ Association and applied to the European Union for Protected Geographical Indication, something which would give official status to Waterford as the home of the blaa.

Over the next few years, M&D brought blaas to events such as The Tall Ships Festival, the Good Food Ireland Food Village, the Galway Volvo Ocean Race Festival and Electric Picnic.

“Getting our product out there has taken several years of hard work, driving long distances and going to high-profile events. But this was the best and cheapest way to market blaas and by the end of 2011 we knew there was a market.”

Mr Walsh says that the appeal for Waterford people is that they have grown up on blaas but for others the attraction is the fact that “it’s a good quality product, with good provenance which has been identified as quintessentially Irish”.

Selling outside Waterford, he says, the company has been helped by the fact that many WaterfordInstitute of Technology students have left the city with a degree and a taste for blaas.

To start with, the company identified the food service industry as the best and least expensive way to develop sales, since it didn’t involve developing retail packaging and branding or struggling to find shelf space. Now making 8,000 blaas a day, M&D is making plans to trial retail products in local Tesco and Supervalu stores.

Supported by Waterford City Enterprise Board, the bakery has invested in technology and employs a full-time staff of 10 and three part-time workers.

“In the region of 40% of sales are of frozen blaas. Turnover grew by 15% last year and over the next two years we expect growth of 20% to 25%.”

The company is currently working on developing some new products for the food service industry including high-quality hot dog buns and is also researching the production of low glycaemic index bread.

Company hopes are high that the blaa will be granted geographical indication status by the EU. “This would be a major boost for the company and for Waterford,” says Mr Walsh.