"The pandemic was a blessing in disguise for us, our website is flying — thanks to LEO's help"
“We have found LEO Kildare to be absolutely fantastic. We have lived in different countries and this local enterprise board was our most positive experience. Everyone here has been so understanding and knowledgeable of our craft sector," say Nessa Doran O’Reilly and Sam Hutchings, of Sam agus Nessa.
Local Enterprise Week 2022 is kicking off on March 7th, in circumstances that many would only have dreamed of. Restrictions are lifting, businesses are reopening and the end of the pandemic seems to finally be in sight.
However, after all the setbacks of the past two years, the road ahead for Irish businesses is still full of uncertainty. Thankfully, the Local Enterprise Offices nationwide remain on hand to help pave the way.
We hear from two of the businesses that have come through the pandemic even stronger thanks to the support of their Local Enterprise Office, as they outline which services helped them most.
RockSalt Café was founded in 2018 by Daniel Mc Loughlin, a determined entrepreneur who was just 29 years old at the time.
Daniel had always been resolute in wanting to own and run his own business by the time he turned 30, something that he achieved with time to spare. This tenacity and commitment to his goals is a trait of Daniel’s that helped RockSalt reach huge success in its initial years – so much so that by 2019, after just one year in business, demand for the RockSalt brand was so high that they even opened a second café in Dundalk to welcome new customers. However, when Covid struck only a few months later and forced both cafés to close up for months, it seemed all the momentum of Daniel’s budding enterprise was in jeopardy.
This, he says, is where his Local Enterprise Office stepped in and played a pivotal role. With the right guidance and support from them, Daniel and his staff were able to swiftly adapt to the new climate they found themselves in. By pointing them towards the various grants available to SMEs like RockSalt, the Local Enterprise Office in Louth helped the café to set up an outdoor coffee dock that proved to be a huge hit during the lockdowns. They also helped Daniel to apply for, and eventually secure, Trading Online Vouchers which went a long way in getting the RockSalt website up and running.
“It’s easy to look back and say it now but the pandemic really was a blessing in disguise for us,” Daniel shares. “We really came out stronger from it. I’d always seen us getting to a stage of selling online, but in my mind that was probably something we would have achieved within five or ten years, there was no mad rush or need for it pre-Covid. I think the pandemic definitely prompted action from us, and a willingness to do things.
"The website’s been a huge change for us, and has really taken off. People have kind of gotten into a routine now where they still like to go for a walk and grab the takeaway coffee too, so our coffee hatches are still in business. The great thing is that now everything’s opening up again we actually have the regular café trade back to where it was pre-Covid, if not even better, but we have these additional revenue streams now too because of the pandemic, that we never would have had before. We’ve had to almost double our staffing because RockSalt has grown so much through the pandemic, which is fantastic.
"The supports the government and our Local Enterprise Office made available to us throughout the pandemic really helped us to take a leap of faith and go for it, so we’re delighted that it’s all paying off now.”
RockSalt have just launched a new collection of Brew Bags, which are being sold locally through SuperValu, and help to achieve the perfect coffee from home without a coffee machine. The company are also set to open a fourth location later this year.
- Local Enterprise Office Louth have organized this year’s Spotlight event ‘Retail: Adapting and innovating in an ever-changing trading environment’ taking place on Monday March 7th.
Sam agus Nessa was founded in 2016 by Nessa Doran O’Reilly and her partner Sam Hutchings. The Kildare couple have enjoyed huge success in the five years since then with their award-winning furniture and product design company.
While the lockdowns caused many of us to make tough sacrifices and forego visiting many of our favourite spots and loved ones, Sam and Nessa were faced with a uniquely difficult situation during the early phases of the pandemic in 2020, and were cut off from one of their most vital resources.
“When the travel restrictions were in place, our workshop was well outside of our 5km,” Nessa explains. “We quickly realised that it would be better to have a premises closer to home, so we converted one of our large outbuildings into a new workshop which would accommodate bigger machines.”
This change is one that allowed them to continue working throughout the pandemic, and proved to be a lifeline for the business. Nessa credits Kildare Local Enterprise Office for helping them keep the show on the road during those tough times; “We applied to our LEO for an expansion grant to help with the conversion and thankfully, we were accepted. We’re now in the process of upgrading our machines and getting in some kit so we can make bigger pieces because we are currently at maximum capacity but we know we can grow the business further.”
While working at that maximum capacity may be a tight squeeze, the couple are delighted to be seeing such strong demand for their products. Nessa says a lot of their customers in the past two years have heard about them thanks to campaigns by the Local Enterprise Office network; "There was a lot of uncertainty about everything [when Covid first hit] and we were getting so many order cancellations, but thankfully, the ‘Look for Local’ campaigns then got underway. The Local Enterprise Offices did a great one and so did the Arts and Crafts Council. These were very effective, and people really began to invest in buying local and supporting small Irish businesses – so much so that our trade really picked up and, in fact, it surpassed sales that we had on any of our previous years.
“Overall we have found LEO Kildare to be absolutely fantastic,” says Nessa. “We have lived in different countries and our experience with the local enterprise boards wasn’t quite as positive because many didn’t know a lot about arts and crafts. By contrast, everyone here has been so understanding and knowledgeable. And even when there was something they didn’t know about, they would always do their best to either find out and get back to us or source someone who could help us. They’ve been super supportive, and I would encourage anyone who is in business to avail of what is on offer.”
- Local Enterprise Office Kildare have organised this year’s Spotlight event ‘From Good to Great: Using Lean for a Competitive Edge’ which takes place on Tuesday March 8th.
Local Enterprise Week is a great opportunity to rejuvenate Irish businesses after what’s been a traumatic period for many over the past two years, says Padraic McElwee, Chair of the Local Enterprise Offices Network.
“I think this year’s event is really important because throughout this pandemic, most businesses have been in survival mode and just trying to get through an onslaught of challenges,” he explains. “So Local Enterprise Week 2022 is really about getting businesses to start looking forward again, to take some time out and assess where they want to go with their company, and what opportunities are out there.
“There’s a couple of big trends that are beginning to emerge and particularly one or two that were sped up by the pandemic, for example we’ve seen huge acceleration around the whole digitalisation of business, so as part of Local Enterprise Week we want to run a number of different events around that. There’s something there for everyone and what’s nice about the Spotlight events is that most of them are fairly short so it’s about giving people a taster of all the different avenues that SMEs can take, and outlining how we can support them through that.”
Here is a list of the 12 free ‘Spotlight’ events taking place virtually from Monday, March 7th to Friday, March 11th
• Drive Growth by Digitising Your Business [Organised by LEO Dublin City]- March 7th: Discover how to automate processes, improve efficiency, connect your software applications to streamline operations.
• Food: Consumer Trends in 2022 [Organised by LEO Limerick]- March 7th: Hear from Ireland’s leading food experts
• Retail: Adapting and innovating in an ever-changing trading environment [Organised by LEO Louth]- March 7th
• Internationalising Your Business: Developing Export Opportunities in a Digital Age [Organised by LEO South Dublin]- March 8th
• From Good to Great: Using Lean for a Competitive Edge [Organised by LEO Kildare]- March 8th
• Going Green: Small Steps, Big Impact [Organised by LEO Cork North and West]- March 9th
• Agile Ambition: Funding for Innovation [Organised by LEO Galway]- March 9th
• Intellectual Property: First Steps in Protecting Your Business [Organised by the Enterprise Europe Network and LEO Donegal, Sligo, Leitrim and New Frontiers North West]-March 9th
• Future Proofing Your Small Business Using Smart Tech Tools [Organised by LEO Wicklow]- March 10th
• Social Media Mashup: Future Opportunities For Your Business [Organsed by LEO Waterford]- March 10th
• Boost Your Business Online: How to stand out from the crowd [Organised by LEO Clare]- March 11th
• Show Me The Money [Organised by LEO Fingal]- March 11th
For more information about all the events taking place as part of Local Enterprise Week 2022, from Monday, March 7th, to Friday, March 11th, visit: www.LocalEnterprise.ie/week
