Corn Dolly Foods, Newry
Corn Dolly Foods has been operating out of Newry for the past 24 years.
Like many bakery firms, it is a family-run business and was started by brothers Jim and Anthony O’Keefe with a small loan of £10,000 and one retail outlet.
Today, Corn Dolly Foods has three retail stores, 48 staff and a purpose built factory with state-of-the-art equipment that supplies the retail, wholesale and exports arms of the business.
A third brother, Donal, joined the business in 1994 and he is responsible for the retail outlets – the latest of which opened recently on Newry’s Monaghan Street.
“When we opened in 1990, we built the business up over a year on a shoe string,” recounted Jim.
“It was very hard work but always believed in ourselves and that was the bottom line. After the first year we started to see result in the original store in Marcus Square, Newry.”
After six years, the second store opened Warrenpoint and Corn Dolly had taken on several wholesale accounts.
“Some people would say that type of growth is slow but we are never ones to rush into anything,” joked Jim.
A grant from DARD and help from Invest NI saw the Corn Dolly open its current manufacturing premises in 2005, a move that also saw the business begin exporting over the border.
“We export tray bakes, muffins, gateaux, cheesecakes, all types of deserts into the Republic. It’s a substantial part of the business,” he said.
Jim explained: “Breads are very much a part of our business. The Corn Dolly brand was built on our batch breads and we developed a reputation for them. We make many breads; from sour doughs right through to pan breads, granaries and wholemeal.”
He continued: “We are now moving more towards gluten free breads. We produce gluten free celebration cakes on request so we are looking to transform a separate area of the bakery into a dedicated gluten free area as it is becoming so important. It’s more important than the vegetarian offering to us as so many people are identifying with different intolerances. This healthy offering is really the future for breads.”
Deserts and celebration cakes are a major part of the Corn Dolly business too; from cream doughnuts to apple puffs, cinnamon Danish to chocolate éclairs, the range is wide and varied.
The wholesale operation sees the Corn Dolly brand on shelves in local Eurospar and Nisa stores; in addition Jim and the team supply other independent businesses.
Whilst the business has grown substantially since its inception, Jim looks back at the past two or three years as the toughest so far.
The downturn hit the retail operation and, coupled with rising commodity prices, made trading more difficult than it had ever been previously.
“Where our store is positioned in Marcus Square it is beside the former Woolworths store. That store was a huge attraction and when it closed our business dropped 10 per cent. Fortunately we picked up on local wholesale orders.”
Jim continued: “Raw material prices have been one of the biggest challenges over the past two to three years. Commodities; the likes of sugar and fruit, chocolate, etc have become extremely expensive. Flour obviously fluctuates depending on harvest and it has come down but generally, once the material prices increase they don’t come back down.”
He added: “We have tried to absorb costs because of the recession and this has made the past few years probably been the most difficult we have had in the history of the business.”
This year has seen the economy begin to pick up in many sectors, including retail, and this is reflected in the recent opening of the Corn Dolly’s third store in Newry.
The new store and tearoom is doing good business since opening and Jim is confident that business will build up and the tearoom will become a popular destination for shoppers in the city.
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*Pictured top is Jim O’Keefe, Corn Dolly Foods
