Canadian Heather Flaherty bought Builín Blasta café in Spiddal after falling in love with the West of Ireland. Now producing its own range of food products, Heather talks to Kathleen O’Callaghan about scaling up and getting onto the shelves of retail giant Aldi.
Heather Flaherty’s story is sort of the Canadian equivalent of Shirley Valentine. Girl travels from her home country to remote island thousands of miles away, falls in love with the place, opens a café, falls in love with a guy, and stays put.
Heather’s point of departure was Saskatoon, the largest city in Saskatchewan, where the temperature is sub-zero for five months of the year. Seventeen years ago she travelled to the west of Ireland with a couple of girlfriends and landed a job in an Inis Mór restaurant.
Flaherty is one of the most common Aran Islands surnames, though Heather says there was no family connection drawing her there. She took to the West of Ireland like wool to a sheep’s back and upskilled with a Business & Culinary Arts degree at GMIT in Galway.
Heather undertook a number of chef roles before buying her way into business in 2015. With fellow director Jenya Hardziyu, who came in for a 15% stake, Heather Flaherty paid €70,000 to buy the Builín Blasta café in Spiddal from New Zealander Jamie Peaker and Nina Walsh.
Modest bank borrowing was required but the idea was that most of the purchase consideration would be repaid from Builín Blasta cashflow. And that’s the way things have worked out. Filed accounts for Builín Blasta Teo show bank borrowings of €87,000, down from €97,000 a year earlier.
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The loan funding agreement is long-term, with annual repayments of c.€11,000 a year, which is very manageable for a business with annual turnover of €390,000 and which paid its two shareholders dividends of €52,000 in 2021.
Builín Blasta is located in the Spiddal Craft Village, which was developed by Údaras na Gaeltachta. It has a reputation for top notch food fare, and the Atlantic Way has scores of similar cafés.
What marks out Heather Flaherty is that she is positioning her business to be less tourist dependent through an increasing focus on food production. In particular, her Smoked Onion Mayonnaise has an opportunity to become a bulk seller after being listed for trial in the Aldi store network.
“Ever since I took over Builín Blasta I’ve been making my own chutneys and dressings,” says Heather. “Everything we cook here is homemade, and I was experimenting with locally grown onions that were smoked, mixing them with our own mayonnaise blend, and it just clicked. I brought it home to my husband to see what he thought of it on his burger and chips. ‘You have to bottle that!’ was his verdict,” she laughs.
The Builín Blasta food products also span Red Onion Tomato Relish, Apple Almond Chutney, Pineapple Chilli Chutney, Mixed Berry Jam, Caesar Dressing, Honey Mustard Dressing and Balsamic Dressing.
They are sold in the café shop and online, and the Aldi supply deal for the mayonnaise entails stepping up a gear from the cottage industry output. That was in train anyway after Builín Blasta added a new manufacturing facility last year the café.
“The journey from café to small manufacturing industry was definitely a steep learning curve, and one that I'm still on to be honest,” she admits. “I'm not sure I would have ever taken the leap if there wasn't such a huge demand for the Smoked Onion Mayo and the café salad dressings.
“I knew that I had to scale up if I wanted to be on supermarket shelves nationwide. We just couldn't keep up with demand working out of the café kitchen.
“My diploma in food manufacturing management at UCC gave me a better understanding of what exactly I was letting myself in for. It was a good launchpad, specifically learning about the structure and principles of lean management and Good Manufacturing Practices.
“I did an extensive study of our business case, including value stream mapping and the cost/benefit of scaling up. There were real savings to be made by introducing semi-automatic processing, but I have to admit it was almost impossible to know where to start when it came to equipment. At one stage we were filling all the jars ourselves and now we have equipment for that.
“I used online research and advice from sales representatives to guide me, but I was really shooting in the dark when it came time to purchasing the machinery. Learn by doing I suppose!
“The other challenge was scaling up from a HACCP food management system at the cafe to a GMP food safety management system. Aldi also helped with the process with mentoring and support.”
Ramping up and a tighter management on budgeting has not meant higher prices for her customers, says Heather. “The production savings made have helped to cushion the blow of inflation and so far we haven't had to raise prices for the retail products but it's not easy for small businesses to keep on top of it all.”
Heather realises the importance of mixing marketing with her culinary skills and is continuing to progress more revenue streams.
“Before Covid I sourced funding from my bank for investing in future growth in the business, like creating the new production facility to employing more staff and promoting the brand online,” she explains.
“Eimear Killian recently joined our team to look after kitchen operations, as you need more hands on deck to grow different revenue lines. This gives me more time to widen our retail products to include Builín Blasta hampers – another part of our upscaling plans.
“The Aldi supply deal is going to provide a big boost for our business and means we can confidently invest in new equipment and staff.”
Heather Flaherty (41) is now married to Galwegian Darragh Connolly, another celebrated Aran Islands family name. The couple live in Spiddal with their two children in a rural home that looks out to the Atlantic Ocean. The next stop is probably Canada – as the Canada Goose flies!
Her parents and sister visit regularly, and the entrepreneur has no desire to return permanently to the old country. “I’ll be staying in Ireland and right here in Spiddal. The West of Ireland is a wonderful place to live.”
Image: Heather Flaherty pictured in her cafe Builín Blasta
