“My Journey to Create Safety & Quality for Allergen Consumers”

My journey is a long one but it’s been a really interesting one…… I suffer with Coeliac Disease and have suffered from the effects of battling with Auto Immune Illnesses all my life & in 2004 got formally diagnosed with the Coeliac Disease Condition…I am a big foodie and big into wellness and eating good real food & love enjoying long enjoyable meals in the company of loved ones. But All of a sudden this became a nightmare, eating out safely was no longer an option, I became the “annoying” customer/ meal guest, who has to dissect every menu with the waiting staff so that I wouldn’t suffer after, I began to refuse to settle for the products that were being offered to us as “food” and began to research how I could change this so this is when The GFKC was born.

I was at the time working in the Corporate World in the Property Sector and began to quickly discover how difficult it was to eat out safely! So I began to research and prepare my own food to enable me to enjoy and eat safely. Whilst still working in the Corporate World and being so unable to eat out this encouraged me to look at a new career route and this is where my journey to solve my health problems showed me an opening gap in the market for allergen consumers.

In order for me to fund this project I dedicated my own time, business sales and marketing skills and also learned to upskill in the kitchen. I participated in cookery workshops including Ballymaloe Cookery School and A close friend of mine at the time with over 20 years experience as a Chef joined me on this journey and introduced me to the catering industry and trained me into a commercial kitchen where my passion grew and my brand developed.

In Order for an Allergen Customer to fully benefit from a Free From Offering the production kitchen must be safe from the allergen ingredients, the only way to fully provide a Gluten & Wheat Free Offering is by having a dedicated kitchen!

Coeliac Disease is an Auto Immune Disease which varies from many symptoms.

It is a common condition which affects about 1 in every 133 people. Contrary to popular belief, Coeliac Disease is not an allergy or intolerance, but an Auto-Immune condition. The condition is usually characterised by severe inflammation of the intestinal mucosa, atrophy of intestinal villi as well as other clinical manifestations. Symptoms of celiac disease may include abdominal bloating, diarrhea and perhaps constipation to name but a few, however may also cause fatigue, osteoporosis, weight loss and gain, malnutrition, infertility and many other common symptoms. The presence of gluten proteins in one’s diet will greatly aggravate coeliac symptoms and should be avoided. The only treatment at this current time for celiac disease is a very strict adherence to a gluten-free diet.

In late 2011 I set up a Christmas Market Stall to sell my freshly baked goods and within one week secured a contract to supply a local healthfood store with my fresh baked bread and soon after began to gain contracts from local cafes and restaurants supplying them with my bread and cakes. My orders began to grow quickly requiring the need of a larger production kitchen so I moved from my home kitchen and leased a fully equipped kitchen in a vacant restaurant space to begin to grow my business. Customers began to call to the premises requesting direct sales which lead to the idea of testing the market with a 10 day “Pop Up” Café during the Rose of Tralee Festival which opened August 16^th The “Pop Up” proved to be a successful concept as Irelands First Gluten Free Café and remained opened on a two year temporary lease winning awards, media attention and successful food critic recommendations.

My Awards include a Gold Star in the Great Taste Awards 2013 for my bread, Shortlisted in the Irish Times Best Shop Awards 2014, Finalist in the Best Casual Dining in the Munster Regionals of the Irish Restaurants Awards 2014, Tripadvisor Certificate of Excellence Award 2014, Georgina Campbell Recommendations 2014 & 2015, Finalist in the Corporate & Hospitality Category in the UK Free From Eating Out Awards 2015, A Bronze Award in 2016 in the Irish Free From Awards for my Fresh Eclairs under the Artisan Cakes Category, In 2016 I was the Kerry Winner of the NEWKD Enterprise Awards. I’ve been a finalist twice in the Connect Kerry women in business awards 2016 & 2017 under the Women in Food Production Category.

Nominated in the SME Awards 2016 & 2017, under the Company Transformation 2016 Category, Currently Im Nominated in this years SME Awards under three categories, Online Retailer, Social Media and the Food & Drink Category.

In the 2 years that the Café was opened I learnt first hand all aspects of running a commercial kitchen and catering business, from learning the of running a busy café from costing, profit margins to managing a full team of staff. I was responsible for the full running of the Kitchen from everything to ordering & responsible for HACCP Policies which I learned from my our Experienced Head Chef who taught me a lot about running the kitchen, investing a total of 5 years of his time and experience into the development stages of my brand, he gave a huge input into the business with his wealth of experience and creative passion.

Through Customer feedback and demand this enabled us to design menu’s and fully design a blue print concept to open a café chain that we felt from customer demands was very much needed especially as our customers travelled from far and wide to sample the First of its kind.

Our Menus displayed the full allergen content two years before legislation was introduced giving customers a stress free dinning experience especially at ordering stage where currently it can be a stress to order a meal without knowing which allergens are actually safe in the current food offerings in mainstream eateries.

During the two year period we quickly discovered what the customers needs were and our take away options grew quickly for the grab n go sector.

Upon an invitation to trade at Electric Picnic by Sally & John McKenna of McKenna’s Guides, we set off for Electric Picnic and set up our onsite Deli which is where we officially launched our deli range of gourmet sandwiches and salad boxes at Electric Picnic, Irelands Leading Music Festival, in Stradbally Co. Laois, in September 2014. The onsite deli was a huge success with festival goers and we were introduced to some of Irelands most admired food critics and chefs such as Chapter One’s Ross Lewis, through such networking relationships which has gone on to open further doors in the industry.

Following the success of our participation and the customer satisfaction and feedback at Electric Picnic it showed us that there were many routes for us to explore which broadened our business plan.

On return from Electric Picnic we returned home to word that the landlord wanted to increase the rent and Due to unreasonable lease terms and increased rent requests we decided to move onto a Bank Funded Business Bootcamp which lead onto a Two Year EU Funded Program called TradeIT which brought me on a journey across Europe upskilling and fully documenting my Food and Wellness Brand .

On the TradeIT Project my business model attracted attention from Trinity College Business Professors which lead to my participation as a co author of a chapter in a published Case Study Book which was presented in Milan Italy and was later published by Emerald Books in late November 2016 which features my business amongst one other Irish Project, Bord Bias Origin Green Project and other chapters featured in the book are larger brands such as Illy Coffee & Google. Having my business model featured amongst such well known brands is a huge accomplishment in my journey with The GFKC.

The Gluten Free Kitchen Company is designed to produce a naturally gluten free mainstream menu covering everything from our Award Winning Fresh Bread, delicious brownies, Fresh Quiches, Outside Catering Offerings, Gourmet Sandwiches to our Award Winning Eclairs which are currently available to order direct from our online store/website.

I’m currently participating on a Horizon 2020 EU Funded Project called the Katana Project where The Gluten Free Kitchen Company is the only Irish Company to have successfully won one of the 100 places awarded out of the 640 applicants throughout Europe. The Gluten Free Kitchen Company were flown out to Stuttgart in Germany in July 2017 to participate in a 3 day business boot-camp detailing what the Project Involves which involves the launch of a new Crowdfund Platform which launches October 1^st.

The Gluten Free Kitchen Company will participate in the Crowdfund Campaign with our Project to raise our target to launch some our key products into Food Service with the collaboration of our Irish Consortium. The top 10 Successful Projects will be awarded a further €100k each from the EU Horizon 2020 Fund which will successfully enable me to full-fill my dream of opening outlets nationally and internationally should I win.

Like any journey in life my journey to develop my ambitious project has come with many challenges. My entrepreneurial character has allowed me to always find a solution to each obstacle I have faced and my passion for my final destination has always been the driving force to reach my ultimate gaol on this journey. But In early 2015 I came upon a major health obstacle that stopped me in my tracks. I fell ill and after receiving a diagnosis in March 2015 it was discovered that I had a large tumour in my stomach which required me to undergo 3 Major surgeries and intensive 3 month tumour shrinking treatment over a 10 month period between late 2015 into 2016. Thankfully I was Cancer Free but the invasive surgery took its toll on my personal life hugely as it required a lot of time off work to recover, but this set back gave me the perspective to sit back and analyse what direction I wanted my brand to go in and the time “off” I had in recovery gave me plenty of time to continue to document areas of the business that would have otherwise required investment in consultancy work, it’s difficult for any entrepreneur to fully switch off and put their feet up so the business was a healthy distraction and one I am very passionate about.

This time off gave me plenty of opportunity to work on building my website which I was able to do with the assistance of an Enterprise Ireland Online Voucher, and documenting the blueprint of a chain of branded outlets to create a franchise model and developing my social media platforms.

For a project like this to work, it is important to surround yourself with experienced mentors and advisors that understand the goal. I have been very blessed and have worked with my amazing team, David Killeen, John Lane & Shane Connors who are experts in the franchise and brand licencing world and I have had great mentors & sponsors along the way too. It is important to realise that a person can not do it alone to make a success out of a project and I have been very blessed to have found my team who have encouraged me and taught me so much along the way, building and developing my business model. It is also important to value your customers because without them there would not be a business model.

This project has been fully funded through personal investment and is ready to upscale to Phase Two of our Three Phase Business Plan. At present I am busy with my own Katana Crowdfund Project to enable this upscale, which launches October 1^st So being the only Irish Company on this project is a massive achievement in itself. I hope that the fact that we are the Only Irish Company on this Program that our Project will be successfully supported by as many contributors as possible to help us reach our target and be in with the 1 in 10 chance to win the overall prize of a further €120K EU Investment.

The Gluten Free Kitchen Company is Approved by the Coeliac Society of Ireland and I strive to grow our brand to eventually open a chain of Café Outlets which will provide a one stop shop for Allergen Consumers providing an array of quality products working with other quality brands as well as our own in a dedicated safe enjoyable environment.

I am very excited about the direction in which the brand is heading and thank everyone who have supported this venture.

Doireann Barrett