HEALTHY EATING MADE EASY

CURRENT STATUS

Richael and Odharnait Connolly, Joup

Company Name: Joup Founders: Sisters Richael and Odharnait Connolly Years in Business: 2 Employee Numbers: 10 Turnover: ½ million this year

ENTREPRENEURIAL AWARDS

Richael Connolly has won various awards, which she says have encouraged her to take a leap forward to do something for herself. - UCC Entrepreneurship Competition 2002 - Enterprise Ireland Student Award 2002 - Young Entrepreneurship Shell Livewire Competition 2005

They say that some of the best ideas come to people when they least expect it. Richael Connolly tells Niamh MacSweeney where she got the idea to start her business and What drives her to succeed.

Richael Connolly was like many Irish students on a summer working holiday in America. “My friends and I were working like crazy and when we would get our juices we would know that we were getting our vitamins. We though it was a great idea.” However, on returning to Ireland convenient healthy eating proved more difficult as there seemed to be fewer opinions available, this was after all before the huge wave of juice bars hit the country.

It was then that she began to realise that this could be a business opportunity. “I knew that the climate here in Ireland was not as warm as California so I thought about adopting the juice concept to soup. It would still be fast and convenient but also wholesome nutritional food that you can eat as you are walking down the road,” Connolly explains.

While in the library studying for her finals Connolly admits that she needed a distraction. She saw a poster for a good ideas competition and decided to send in her idea. “A couple of months later I got a phone call saying that I had won €500. It was then that I thought there really is something in this.”

Breaking The Barrier

Connolly approached competition organiser and lecturer at University College Cork, Bill O’Gorman. “He was so encouraging and saw no barriers to it, so I spent the summer of my final year working with him developing a business plan. I researched the idea and the market and that extended into a research masters. I looked at graduates that went straight from university to starting their own business and found only five in the past 10 years,” she says.

Connolly came straight out of college and started Joup in 2004 trading in farmers markets. Joup was officially opened in the English market in Cork in 2005 and then in Ballenlough in 2006. The name came from combining the words juice and soup. Joups mission is to make food fast and convenient while healthy and wholesome. They do a selection of about nine different soups; have branched into a meal in a bowl such as stew and shepards pie and a variety of different juices from fruit juice and smoothies to vegetable juices such as spinach and wheat grass.

Overcoming Challenges

At the beginning Joup was a small operation with the sisters working the farmers market themselves. However, now that they are getting bigger they find that staffing is a big issue. “The team working with us is fantastic and we have been so lucky. We are defiantly good in recruiting the right people but it is difficult when they are the same age as you and you have to take on the managerial role. Not having experienced such a managerial role before this has been an interesting role to take on,” she admits. Connolly also agrees that because the idea was conceived in 2001 and did not make it to market until 2004, she spent a lot of time researching the market. “Making that big leap from theory to practice to bring it to the market was a big step to take and it was difficult because I didn’t have huge financial backing.”

Customer Care

Connolly prides herself on spending time with her customers and getting their feedback. “People tell you if they do or don’t like a product and give me ideas. We spend a lot of time talking to people and making that connection, explaining our products, especially the juices that people aren’t familiar with.”

Healthy Eating

Connolly argues that we are in fact the first generation that is less healthy than the generation that has gone before us and although people are concerned about their food they are losing trust in the food industry. She is infuriated by marketing campaigns that claim to make you healthy. “Big business knows that the healthy food market is a huge and growing market and of course they are going to brand themselves and market themselves towards that even though they are sending out really confusing messages.” According to Connolly eating healthy is easy but marketing is making it seem more difficult.

Company: Joup
Key Contact: Richael Connolly
T: + 353 (0)21 4292073
E: richaelconnolly@ireland.com