[00:00:00] Geraldine Hennessy: Welcome to the Cork Creative Podcast. With this podcast, we hope to promote local creative businesses and people. I am your host, Geraldine Hennessy, and today I am chatting to chocolatier Niamh O’Reilly from Hungry Crow in the bustling O’Donovan’s Hotel in Clonakilty.
Niamh has had a wonderfully varied career. She has gone from being a ceramic artist to a health food employee and now a chocolatier. She first started working with this nutrient dense food in 2015 and became hooked. An advocate for using as much ethically sourced and organic ingredients as possible, she masterfully creates her delights without the need for dairy, grains or refined sugars.
In this episode, we discuss her path into working with chocolate. The challenges of the business world and rising raw material prices, taking an ethical approach to business, listening to her customers, recreating the classics with her unique twist, her hopes for the chocolate industry, and just doing it.
So you’re very welcome to Cork Creative, Niamh.
Niamh O’Reilly: Thank you.
Geraldine Hennessy: So you’ve gone from ceramic artist to health foods employee and now a chocolatier. Can you share the story behind the founding of Hungry Crow Chocolates and what inspired you to start making chocolate?
[00:01:24] Niamh O’Reilly: Yeah, it’s, it’s, it’s almost as if everything I’ve done so far in my, fairly longish life has led me here.
I didn’t intend to make chocolates. When I was working in the health food shop, I worked with nutritionists who were quite inspiring, really. And I wanted to make sort of food that was more sort of health based treats. So I started off making health food, kind of raw food, bars, using only ingredients that had some nutritional value.
And then I got fascinated by chocolate because chocolate is actually the most nutrient dense food on the planet. And why not? It’s also, it is also kind of, you can get really obsessed with it. The whole process of making and tempering. And it is, it is actually a very temperamental medium, I suppose. I enjoyed the decorating because that’s great fun.
I enjoyed the forms because it’s, that’s also can dictate how much of a taste you get for something or what the filling is or what the texture is. So yeah, it was, it became, it, I just became obsessed. And it became more and more chocolate based as opposed to a raw food really.
[00:02:48] Geraldine Hennessy: So it was a natural progression for you just to veer towards chocolate as well?
[00:02:52] Niamh O’Reilly: Yeah, it was. And it kind of fulfilled a creative need that I had as well as the integrity of the food. I was very, I’m…I am still…I’m really passionate about that. Just keeping a certain level of healthy choice, really. So no refined sugars or dairy or grains and only using the finest dark chocolate I can find.
And the most ethically sourced ingredients I can find. That’s kind of given me boundaries within which to work. So I’ve got… these are the boundaries. And then within that, I can do anything I like, which is, which is, which is brilliant. It’s a kind of a nice way to be creative because otherwise, you just kind of just spread yourself too thin which has kind of been the story of my life.
It’s like, Oh yeah, I can do that without knowing that I can at all, but I’ve learned, I’ve learned to experience and making lots of, lots of mistakes.
[00:03:42] Geraldine Hennessy: And why the name Hungry Crow?
[00:03:44] Niamh O’Reilly: Hungry Crow. When I decided I was going to set up business, I, I’d come to a place where I was either going to…..I needed to change.
I needed to make a change in my life. And I was either going to go back and study sculpture in college, or I was going to get involved in making the food a business. And I thought, like, I just went, you can’t do both. You just absolutely can’t do both. So you’ve got to make a decision. So I applied for two different places.
I applied to do the artisan food diploma in UCC. And I was putting together a portfolio to do an MA in sculpture in Dublin, and I got offered the place in UCC and I thought, yeah, I’m just going to go for it. And then I, I was thinking I need to name this. I need to give this, whatever I do a name, cause I wasn’t sure what I was going to do.
And I didn’t want it to be sort of Niamh’s Chocolates or, you know, or, or a place name or anything that was, you know, something that defined it too much so that I had a bit of freedom and Hungry Crow comes from an image from an Aesop’s Fable book that I was given when I was a very small child. And I always loved the image, always loved the fable, and it was more the visual really than anything else.
I just wanted that, that visual. So at the end of the fable, the crow is a hungry crow because it doesn’t get the food because he gets freaked out by the clever fox. And yeah, so yeah, it stuck….Hungry Pro. I just went, yeah, that’s it. I know it doesn’t really make much sense when it comes to food, but I really like it.
[00:05:19] Geraldine Hennessy: Well, I don’t know. I was just intrigued as to why that, but that makes, that makes sense. Yeah.
[00:05:25] Niamh O’Reilly: Yeah. It’s, it’s a beautiful book, I love the illustration and I’m using alot of those illustrations from the same book to develop new ranges of chocolate. So chocolate boxes will all have different characters.
[00:05:36] Geraldine Hennessy: Oh yeah. Okay.
[00:05:38] Niamh O’Reilly: So there’s the fox and there’s a lion, there’s a tortoise and there’s a mouse and they’re all, they’re all beautifully drawn. So we’re, we’re using them as inspiration rather than taking them directly because you can’t, but it’s, yeah, it’s lovely. It’s a lovely book and I’ve always loved it.
So.
[00:05:52] Geraldine Hennessy: Very good. So you sell an artisan product but can you explain what makes your chocolates unique compared to others in the market?
[00:05:59] Niamh O’Reilly: I suppose like there would be a lot of similarities because people love certain tastes like salted caramel or nutty chocolates or, and I, and I do look at classic recipes and I would use classic recipes.
But what I would do is ….there is a couple of promises I make. One is there’s no dairy, there’s no grains and no refined sugar. So absolutely none. The sugar I use is either a coconut blossom sugar, dates, which are fair trade Palestinian dates, or coconut blossom sugar is also organic, occasionally xylitol, if I need something to be brighter and whiter, which is bark of a beech tree, it’s a natural occurring sugar.
It’s a bit better. It’s better than refined sugars. Or coconut blossom sugar, coconut palm sugar, which is a, it’s a non-refined dark brown sugar. It’s got a natural caramel taste and that gives it a sort of distinctive kind of caramelly sweet taste which I like, and probably defines a lot of the chocolates because it’s the only sugar I use.
So it goes right across the board. Yeah, I suppose that’s what it is really. I mean, like I do, I will look at classic recipes and adapt them. So if like with my caramels it’s made with coconut blossom sugar. But I’ll use like, an alternative to butter, I’ll use an alternative for cream. I have a white chocolate, but it’s almond based as opposed to sort of milk.
Yeah. So that’s kind of where we, I suppose, are a little bit different. Now, not everybody wants, you know, that type of chocolate. And it doesn’t suit everybody, but lots of people do like it. Okay. It’s good.
[00:07:42] Geraldine Hennessy: And you have some very quirky names, like “Almond I scrumptious Pleasure Box”. I was laughing when I was researching this. So is that like bit of fun reflected of you as a person? And is it kind of important for you to try and stand out from the crowd?
[00:07:57] Niamh O’Reilly: It just kind of came naturally. It’s mainly my husband. So like he does a lot of the selling and he’s in the markets and he, is a writer by trade. And so he likes playing with words.
And so they’ve all got kind of slightly quirky names and it’s fun. Like we don’t take it too seriously, you know, it is fun. They just kind of come out of the ether. Yeah. One of my favourite names is the Amazeballs. So that was, yeah. That was my niece. So when I made them first, she was like about 10 or 11.
She, she tasted one and she went, it’s amazeballs. So we went, aha,
Geraldine Hennessy: Brilliant. So it isn’t that lovely though?
Niamh O’Reilly: Yeah. Yeah.
Geraldine Hennessy: It makes it real personal, isn’t it?
Niamh O’Reilly: Yeah. Yeah. I still get a kick out of people asking for an amazeballs. Sorry. I do. It’s like, can I have an amazeballs? Yep.
[00:08:49] Geraldine Hennessy: Yeah. So, yeah. And you mentioned there about the ingredients. So how would you select the ingredients for your chocolates and why is single origin coverture chocolates so important?
[00:08:59] Niamh O’Reilly: The ingredients…Iget the best that I can get. You’re not always guaranteed. Like the dates are Palestinian, you know, and they’ve changed from time to time. And that’s good. And I, I stick to that as much as I can.
If they’re not available, I’ll get them from somewhere else. I’d say 90 percent of the time they’re Palestinian. Sometimes they’re California. So that would be it. But the chocolate is a definite choice. And single origin is also a definite choice. The chocolate comes from a company which are, have, a really ethical, I’m really impressed by them.
They, for example, they deal with farmers rather than farms. They deal with people and it’s made by people, not by machine. And they guarantee it’s a, it’s a cacao fino de aroma. It’s only 7%. of chocolate in the world is this particular kind of cocoa and it’s all comes from Latin America.
So predominantly the two chocolates I use are either Colombian or Peruvian. The single origin can be like farm. It can be a region or it can be a country. So sometimes it reflects the, the characteristics of the chocolate and the earth that it’s grown in. So, you can get this multi-flowery kind of taste that you don’t get when chocolates are mixed or, I mean, and other chocolates are absolutely delicious and we’re more used to them, I suppose, but the single origin will have very distinctive notes, distinctive flavours.
And also you, you know, there’s traceability, sustainability, because you know, you know where it’s coming from. Which is the same thing as making things in small batches as well. So you do.. it’s you know, your source, it doesn’t get lost in a massive machine of industry. Yeah.
And I just, I love that this company, like say for example, so the latest chocolate prices really was sparked by climate chaos. And in Ghana and the Ivory Coast, now it’s 70 percent of the world’s cocoa beans come from there. And because of that, there, there was one a lot of crop loss, but there’s also a mite that affected the crops.
Those farmers, not all of them, there will probably be some that are paid a decent wage, but most of them, when the larger companies are paid 40, 43 or 45 percent of the value of the cocoa bean, the current value of the cocoa bean, which is appalling, really so unsustainable. Whereas the chocolate that I buy, those farmers are paid 95 percent and there’s also investment in the infrastructure so that they continue to thrive and they continue to make a good product and they continue to be sort of, you know, proud of what they do. They also invest in biodiversity and in schools. They’re good.
[00:12:13] Geraldine Hennessy: So as a food producer, that’s important to you.
[00:12:15] Niamh O’Reilly: Very important. I mean, like, if we all make an effort to make things a little better rather than a little worse, it will make a big difference.
And even though like we’re very small and struggling, really the same things that everybody in a small business are struggling with, I think the choices we make are very important. And that’s, that’s all I can really do. I feel like so just make the best choices. So even with our packaging, it’s important that we use the best quality recycled or recyclable packaging.
Cause like chocolate is one of the most over packaged things on the planet. And yes, it needs to look beautiful because people want something kind of like extravagant and exquisite, but you can do that with sustainable packaging and I’m, I’m trying to develop more sustainable packaging as well.
So it’s, yeah, it’s an ongoing process.
[00:13:07] Geraldine Hennessy: Okay. And you mentioned there about you avoiding like dairy grains or refined sugars. Yeah. Why was, is that so important?
[00:13:14] Niamh O’Reilly: I think the food industry, well, food has become an industry and gradually over the last a couple of decades, more, probably since the seventies when convenience foods started appearing lik crispy pancakes or any of those kind of like really sort of weird…Oh, Smash. Yeah. Weird, weird Angel Delight, like all the weird food, like the food that wasn’t foo. That isn’t food. And it was novel and we were very excited about it and thought it was a great treat and everything. It’s become, it’s become a problem. It’s a massive problem. It’s a problem with illness, obesity, food poverty. And it’s, it’s it’s, it’s an ever spiraling escalating issue for all of us. Like, and the food industry, I think is encouraged to produce more, produce cheaper and to sell more rather than, you know, produce less and produce better. You know, that’s, that’s, that’s what you’re encouraged to do.
So when you’re encouraged to do that, then of course the companies who are all about their profit margins are going to add the cheaper things that makes the food last longer. So you’ve got your sugar and your salt and your fat and all of those things that make it taste nicer, last longer, and contribute to all sorts of basic health problems.
So to me, it’s really important to offer… I mean, they’re sweet, they’re sweet treats. They’ve still got sugar in them, but at least it’s whole sugar. It’s not super refined. It’s not, in fact, when you eat one, you shouldn’t want to eat loads of them because you can’t because they’re so rich that one is enough.
[00:14:46] Geraldine Hennessy: And can you tell us about the process of handcrafting chocolates in small batches and the benefits of this approach?
[00:14:52] Niamh O’Reilly: I suppose the benefits are like any small production processes. You’ve got traceability from start to finish. You know what’s gone into it, you know, when it was made. So if there’s any issue or problem, it’s easy to trace it made by hand rather than like made by machine.
So it’s, you know, it could slightly vary for batches, but like, but it’s all done with, you know, with care and integrity. Yeah, I suppose that’s mostly it. I mean, like the process…from the idea, like I quite often, I will, I do a lot of reading. I read a lot about…I read recipes, chocolate recipes or any recipe at all.
But if I find a flavour combination, I think is exciting. I just kind of see if that works with chocolate and then just think about whether what shape it’s going to go into, what colours I’m going to use, or if I’m going to use colours, what chocolate I’m going to use. And then, and sometimes I just do it ’cause I just go, yeah, that’d be great.
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And mostly it, sometimes it doesn’t work out. Yeah. But yeah, mostly it does. Yeah. So it’s, it’s all, it is a creative process, I suppose. Yeah. And, and that’s why I enjoy it. I enjoy being able to come up with new things. I think I find if I had to reproduce in a sort of almost like factory set, setting the same things. Now I do make a lot of the same things again and again, because they’re like, I have a standardized kind of range of things that I like and are popular, but there’s always something new and always play around with something new. So yeah.
[00:16:32] Geraldine Hennessy: It feeds that creative part of you so.
[00:16:34] Niamh O’Reilly: Yeah, otherwise I’d just stop.

[00:16:35] Geraldine Hennessy: Fair enough.
And what challenges have you faced in maintaining the quality and integrity of your products?
[00:16:45] Niamh O’Reilly: Price increases. Yeah. Just the price increases are, especially at the moment, they’re horrific. The price, the raw material. And I tell my customers, I have very lovely, loyal customers.
And I’ve explained to them, they’ve all gone, it’s fine. Just charge us. We might buy less. But we’ll still buy it. And yeah. So there’s that. And you know, it’s a very difficult thing because you’re looking at, on one hand, I could buy cheaper materials then I’m compromising on what the actual product is.
Recently I was offered a lot of very deep Israeli dates. Like for a moment where I went, Oh my God, I’d actually make money. And I was like, no, I can’t, but I didn’t. Yeah. And I’m glad I didn’t. I just felt terrible. I felt really bad. I just felt like I was lying to my customers as well. And that like, I’d have just let myself down, but I could, that temptation was there.
And it always is. I think it’s hard to maintain it, especially when you feel like you’re just losing money and, and that you’re losing an edge over competition because they can make it cheaper and faster and probably in some cases, like just appease that sweet tooth.
[00:17:59] Geraldine Hennessy: I suppose there’s always that kind of conflict in business about the ethical versus profitability.
[00:18:04] Niamh O’Reilly: Yeah. I read recently just about the company that I buy the chocolate from and the difficulties they’re facing with this whole chocolate crisis. They had this sentence, which I kind of…it just gave me hope and made me feel really good.
Actually. They said, look, it’s sustainability over short term profit. Just stick with this. And I was like, okay, I can’t …like my prices have gone up a hundred percent. I can’t put my chocolates up a hundred percent. We’ll keep our heads above water and then hopefully things will level out again. So yeah, they’re the challenges. Amongst things like bookkeeping, which I seem to be allergic to. In fact, I have my husband, in fact, if I didn’t have my husband, I’d be just drowned in a pile of receipts and kind of like, I’m absolutely terrible at it. I know everybody says that. It’s true.
Geraldine Hennessy: Yeah. He has his uses.
Niamh O’Reilly: He’s great. He’s meticulous. He doesn’t like it either. I don’t know anybody who actually does. Maybe bookkeepers, maybe, I don’t know, but he’s very meticulous and he’s Yeah, it’s great.
[00:19:08] Geraldine Hennessy: And how do you come up with new flavours and combinations for your truffles and mixed chocolates? And can you chat to us a little about what change you make in your production based on seasonal influences?
[00:19:19] Niamh O’Reilly: So I have a chocolate that I make only when I can get blackcurrants and I have some in my garden at the moment. So, and I’ve also got some from a lovely neighbour of mine. And so I make a blackcurrant and liquorice chocolate and I make that. And they only really occur when I have got the blackcurrants.
I can freeze them, but they don’t last very long. And it’s surprisingly like, they’re such an incredible superfood, blackcurrants. And they, like, they remain, you know, nutritionally, what’s the word, it’s valid or whole, even with processing. So even like, what I mean by processing is just, I make a compote, I heat them with coconut blossom sugar and then sieve them and then you’ve got, that’s the essence I use to make ganache.
They still have nutritional value and they taste amazing. So they’re, they’re an interesting thing. I’ll also, I’ll use strawberries, but I’ll, I’ll dehydrate them. And I love when I can get apricots, even though they’re not necessarily grown locally sometimes. But so it’s fruit really like, and, you know, we don’t really, I would use nuts if I could get sort of local cob nuts and things like that.
I’d love to use them, but it’s, it’s mainly fruit. It’s mainly fruit. That would influence what I do. Definitely in the summer, there’s plenty of it and we can play around with different fruity things and that’s great.
[00:20:38] Geraldine Hennessy: Researching for this episode of Cork Creative was very challenging as your website and social media is filled with beautiful images of your chocolates.
And I was very hungry by the end of it. How do you approach the visual presentation of your products?
[00:20:51] Niamh O’Reilly: Initially, I met a food photographer at the flea market in Dublin years ago, and we did a Christmas called Maria Dublin. She is, she’s a food photographer. I love what she does. I think she’s, she’s really, really good.
So we developed like the kind of relationship where I’d send her the chocolates and she’d photograph them. I said I wanted her to think sort of vermeer colours, like, like very dark and smoky rather than….There’s a lot of like chocolates normally presented with very bright and vibrant backgrounds.
But I kind of wanted it to look a bit, because it’s dark chocolate, I wanted it to have dark undertone to it. And she is fantastic. She completely got it. Like she’s absolutely brilliant. Yeah. I need to get some more taken, but she kind of inspired me to ….Like a lot of the individual shots of chocolates I’ll take myself now, but I’ll always use the same background because I just looked at what she did and she kind of inspired me to just… I mean, I don’t…I have a phone, basically my phone. I use Instagram and just, I have one space in my kitchen where if I like the look of something, I’ll take photos of it and then just keep it.
But yeah, it was, it’s her, Maria Dublin…those photographs are all hers and they’re fabulous. Like she’s great.
[00:22:04] Geraldine Hennessy: They do what they intend to do, what they’re meant to do, make your people want, or people are looking at it, want to eat them.
[00:22:10] Niamh O’Reilly: Yeah, we work really well together.
She was fantastic. She is fantastic. She’s still around. Yeah.
[00:22:20] Geraldine Hennessy: We spoke a little bit about it, but how do you balance sustainability and ethical sourcing in your production process?
[00:22:26] Niamh O’Reilly: Well, as best as I can, like we, I mean, obviously if you were in the Northern hemisphere or in Europe and you’re making chocolate, it all comes from that equatorial belt in the world.
So you’re like, that’s a lot of food miles, but at least I know the chocolate I’m buying is coming from an ethical company. So even though they’re based in Columbia, they now have a European center as well so where they’re just distributing to European countries. Yeah. It’s not, it’s not ideal, but it’s the best I can do really.
And then I just like, for example, with the Palestinian dates, I feel at least I’m doing something. And then if like I do buy from a supplier that would supply health food shops, it would be invested in having ethical products. So if I can get an organic product, I will, if I can’t, or it’s just not feasible, I’ll use the best that I can get.
Okay. So it’s like, I can’t ever say that it’s all organic. Cause it’s not always all or nothing. I mean, it’s as much as it can.
Geraldine Hennessy: Yeah. You strive for it as much as you can. So yeah.
Niamh O’Reilly: Yeah. Just the best quality the best quality. And then you also have to have a certain amount of trust in your suppliers, your wholesalers.
So you’re looking at the wholesalers and what their ethics are and what they do. So you need to trust them, you know. So yeah, so I suppose you do need to sort of have a certain amount of trust, but like we sell coffee in our little shop as well, and that’s the coffee cup thing, like the whole other thing, you know, so that’s, we’re trying to deal with that. With the To Go cup scheme which more and more people are looking at, but it’s not perfect, but it’s better than land waste.
The packaging, as I was saying, is a big thing. And just, I mean, I use…. the chocolate boxes are made from recycled cocoa shell. Oh yeah. Yeah. I mean, at one stage I wanted to make my own paper and I just thought, that’s ridiculous. I’m never going to sleep again. Like, stop now.
Geraldine Hennessy: Love, love how your mind works.
Niamh O’Reilly: So I’m going to make a paper from that and I say, stop, stop, stop, stop. So it’s, it’s a lovely, it’s a lovely paper. I really like it. It’s not, it’s not Irish, but I mean, like because of Brexit, Brexit was a pain, absolute pain was the first of many, but Brexit…..COVID….
[00:25:00] Geraldine Hennessy: Good few years of difficulties, but you’ve come out the other side, or you’re coming out the other side.
[00:25:05] Niamh O’Reilly: Well, now we’ve got the doubling of chocolate prices. So like, I suppose we’ve just learned to deal with whatever gets thrown at you. Stress management, I think.
[00:25:18] Geraldine Hennessy: You have both a retail premises, which is on one of the main routes west, as well as selling a local farmer’s markets. Is it important to you to maintain the presence of markets despite having a retail shop?
[00:25:30] Niamh O’Reilly: Oh yeah, absolutely. It’s a hundred percent. Markets are our lifeblood, really. I mean, and markets are literally…you’re marketing what you do. You find, you get great feedback at markets. May not always be positive, but you get really honest feedback from markets and you get to a much wider audience.
[00:25:49] Geraldine Hennessy: Okay.
[00:25:49] Niamh O’Reilly: Because our, I mean, like our shop is tiny, it’s really just like an add-on to the end of the kitchen. And it does, you know, it’s not a sit down place. You can pop in and buy stuff, but it’s, if there’s two people in it, it’s crowded. Yeah. Oh, it’s tiny, tiny, tiny, but the markets are, yeah, they’re great.
They’re really, really good. That’s where we started. And we have a huge loyalty to them and we’ve got incredibly loyal customers who, you know, they mightn’t buy a lot, but they’ll buy something every week. And that makes a huge difference.
[00:26:18] Geraldine Hennessy: Talking about your customers, what are some customer favourites or bestsellers among your chocolates and how has the feedback from your customers influenced your product development and business strategies?
[00:26:29] Niamh O’Reilly: Yeah, I mean, feedback is hugely important. I have amended, changed, worked on products and recipes according to feedback and just watching what sells. We were recently told of some sort of market research where there was like, Oh, you know, chocolate experts, actually who said that salted caramel had its day, and I said, okay, people who buy it don’t think so.
It’s still a favourite and I suppose it’s sweet and salt. That’s the human weakness. We love it. I don’t think it’ll ever have its day. I think it’s there to stay, you know. I mean, it may not be the most innovative chocolate right now, but there are classics like I always had a hazelnut, always had a an orange chocolate, always had a mint.
No, they’re not the most original chocolates in the world, but there are people who love those chocolates. And when I don’t make them, if I don’t, if I kind of go, I’m not sure about this and I stopped making it and people ask for it, I’ll make it again. Because it’s, you know…
[00:27:32] Geraldine Hennessy: They’re classics for a reason, I suppose.
[00:27:34] Niamh O’Reilly: Yeah, absolutely. And it’s nice to have them in a box, even if you’ve got sort of slightly stranger things going on. Like I do tend to like the fruity flavours a lot, so I have to be careful that they’re not all fruity because I just, I will go with what I love a lot. And I like fruit and I like nuts and that seems to be….but I do make, I do make a coffee, but I, I use the coffee that we use in our shop.
So it’s Red Strand. Yeah. And, and I’m always… I love Middle Eastern flavours as well, like sort of cardamom and rose and all of those kind of like really… and tahini and all of those flavours and textures, so I tend to veer a little bit towards that as well. The cashew rose date is by far the most popular thing that I’ve ever done.
It’s kind of mad because I didn’t really think it would be, but it is. Yeah. Not everybody loves it, but the people who love it, really love it. So yeah. And it’s, yeah. I mean, that’s a classic as well. That’s not my invention. That’s a classic Middle Eastern dessert and they just use dates with cashew and rose in it.
It was suggested to me by somebody who’s, I think he’s Iranian. And he said, you should try this. This is what we do. And I went, okay. And of course it took off.
[00:28:51] Geraldine Hennessy: Perfect. Yeah. You listen so. It’s very important.
[00:28:55] Niamh O’Reilly: Oh God, yeah. I mean I’ve learned just by making mistakes.
And I have no classical training in chocolate making, other than making lots of very expensive mistakes. And reading, yeah, I’m being inspired by amazing chocolate makers, but I do love it. And I think I have something kind of a little bit unusual.
[00:29:15] Geraldine Hennessy: Absolutely. And how do you envisage the evolution of the chocolate industry, especially in terms of the health conscious?
[00:29:21] Niamh O’Reilly: I think it’s going to become, well, I hope, but I do believe that it’s going to become…. the choice for a healthy option is going to become more important. I hope it will become more important. I think it’s vital, actually. You know, as people begin to realize that we, we literally are what we eat.
And yeah, having a treat is not a bad thing. Treats are good. Treats are very good. They make us happy. And chocolate has amazing properties, all sorts of amazing health giving properties and that we should enjoy. But I, yeah, no, I’m hoping, I’m hoping that that’s the way the trend will go.
Market research says it will. I’ve always believed it should anyway, whatever about market research, but I I do think, I do think chocolate is an incredible food and it is a food, it’s not just a….
[00:30:11] Geraldine Hennessy: snack.
[00:30:12] Niamh O’Reilly: Yeah.
[00:30:13] Geraldine Hennessy: And what are your future plans for Hungry Crow and do you have any new products or projects in the pipeline?
[00:30:19] Niamh O’Reilly: So world domination? Okay, so we’re both in our late fifties and it’s hard, hard work. We would like to survive for another 10 or 15 years, whatever we have in us, but, and I’ll continue to make chocolate. I’d like to do more than survive. I’d like to thrive, but at the moment we’re kind of taking it day by day because it’s, we’ve been through so much and with this kind of price spike now, it just don’t know what it’s like.
And the world is so kind of unstable. Everything seems to be really unstable and shifting and moving and changing. I think we’ll just go with what, we’ll do what we can and go with what we can. I mean, I always have plans for new things and the packaging and I’m trying to make it better and trying to improve what we have, there’s a few different things in the pipeline at the moment but I’m not certain of them yet, so.
[00:31:13] Geraldine Hennessy: Day by day, so.
[00:31:14] Niamh O’Reilly: Day by day, really, month by month, like, yeah.
[00:31:16] Geraldine Hennessy: Okay. And what advice would you give to aspiring chocolatiers or small business owners in the food industry?
[00:31:22] Niamh O’Reilly: Don’t give up.
[00:31:24] Geraldine Hennessy: Good
[00:31:24] Niamh O’Reilly: Don’t give up. Yeah, just don’t give up. Like, don’t, like, you are going to get challenged and if you truly love it and truly believe in it, find a way around it, don’t give up, do what you believe is right, do what you love.
[00:31:35] Geraldine Hennessy:
Very good. Well, Niamh, thank you so much for joining us on the Cork Creative podcast. If you’d like to learn more about Niamh and Hungry Crow, you can find links to her website and socials on corkcreative.ie.