Kearney’s Bakery

Maura Kearney’s first encounter with the bakery trade was as a teenager, when she needed money to take her dancing to Ballybunion.

“It was the summer of my Leaving Cert and a friend and I decided we’d do a batch of baking and sell from her house, which was in the village. The plan worked and we got plenty of dancing that summer,” she recalls.

Maura, who hails from the village of Ballyhahill in west Limerick, followed up by doing a bakery production and management degree in Cathal Brugha Street, now part of DIT. Two years later her sister, Siobhan, followed suit.

“I’d tried cheffing, but it wasn’t for me and the minute I started the bakery course I just loved it,” says Maura.

When she was 18, Maura bought a commercial oven and began making her mother’s favourite recipes and selling them locally.

Maura and Siobhan used their summer and Christmas holidays to market research what their customers liked best, and what they discovered was a huge demand for genuinely homemade bread and cakes.

“It was the time when women were going back to work, and between jobs and family they just hadn’t time for home baking.

“However, they still wanted the bread and cakes that their mothers made,” says Maura.

“Mam is well known for her baking, especially her fat-less sponges and she always has two of them when going visiting. Her brown bread, scones, tarts and eclairs are also gorgeous. So these were the basic recipes we began with and really, we couldn’t go wrong.”

When the girls were 22 and 20, their parents gave them a site on the family farm to build a bakery. In what was a very clever move, the bakery was built in the form of a dormer bungalow, but without some of the internal walls. That way if the bakery failed, they could fall back on reconfiguring it as a house.

Local jobs

But far from failing, Kearney’s Bakery has gone from strength to strength, outgrowing the original premises and having to expand three times. Today, it employs 22 people full time and another six to eight seasonally, most of whom live within a 10km radius of the bakery.

So was there a plan?

“Not a chance,” says Maura. “When you are that young the only thing you think of is today and tomorrow. If we had thought too much into the future, it would have been too scary.”

Getting started wasn’t easy and despite being guaranteed by their parents, Michael and Daisy, they were turned down by several banks. But they persisted and got their loan. Planning came through and they opened the bakery on 16 June 1992.

“Our offering was home baked, with the bread all kneaded and cut by hand. The range was made up of products that suited every member of the family. It was 24/7 and it was non-stop hard work for the first 15 years.”

Offers to go national

The support of local shops in the early days was invaluable, and something Maura and Siobhan are very grateful for. Today, you will find Kearney’s bread and cakes in SuperValu, Centra, Mace, Spar, Londis and local independent shops. However, only in a 45km radius of Ballyhahill.

“We’ve had offers to go nationwide, but that’s not for us. We like the size we are and it allows us to do what we do right. The business is ours, our success or failure, and we are creating our own path,” says Maura.

And while the recipes of their mother are timeless, Maura says it’s important to offer their customers something new. So there’s no added sugar in any of their breads and their new health loaf has no white flour or added sugar.

“Bread gets a bad press, and really it’s not deserved. Bread is needed as part of a balanced diet and it’s good for fibre and iron. It is, after all, the staff of life itself,” says Maura.

www.kearneyshomebaking.com

Barron’s Bakery

Ancient ovens, signature breads and a passion for baking make a visit to Barron’s Bakery that bit special. It has graced the appropriately named Cook Street in Cappoquin for exactly 130 years. And in all those years the business has been in the same family, in the same place, doing the same thing. It’s a heritage that Esther Barron is very proud of.

“As a business we’ve survived tough times. This was certainly the case from the 1980s onward, when so many small, traditional family businesses folded in face of huge competition from the multiples. You needed real passion and love of what you were doing to survive – you certainly didn’t do it for the money,” says Esther, who along with her husband, Joe Prendergast, runs the bakery.

The passion Esther has for Barron’s bread is infectious and she is adamant about the necessity of local people supporting local businesses. Use your loaf and support your local baker is a motto she is happy to adopt.

“It makes perfect sense. It keeps money in the locality, as it’s not being repatriated back to Germany or Britain. It helps hold services in rural areas and creates jobs for the next generation. Most of all, a good bakery can generate a real sense of community.”

Signature breads

Barron’s signature bread is the ‘turnover.’ It’s bread that’s made, left to prove, knocked back, proved again and then baked for an hour.

“That’s what you call real bread,” says Esther.

And it’s baked in what can be only described as a duo of awesome ovens. Faced with purple ceramic tiles, the cavernous interiors are capable of baking 150 loaves at a time. What’s more, they have been baking perfect bread for over 100 years. Bread baking takes place six nights a week, from 9pm until 5am.

“It takes two and a half hours to bring the heat up and then it will take two men 20 minutes to fill the ovens. While the ‘turnover’ is our signature bread, other specialities include basket bread, long pan, bloomers, country style and all white yeast breads.”

A coffee shop was added in 1983 and this was revamped in 2013. In all, the business gives employment to 14 people.

Last year Aoife Hallahan and Emma O’Keeffe, nieces of Esther, joined the business to manage the coffee shop and confectionary end of the business.

“They both gave up good careers and we are thrilled about it. It’s going well. We are still here after five generations, so it’s nice to see the next generation involved,” says Esther.

Farmers’ market offers opportunity

In 2004, Barron’s started selling from a stall at the farmers’ market in Dungarvan and Esther says it was the best thing they ever did.

“We have strong support around Cappoquin, but the farmers’ market connected us with a whole new set of customers. It allowed for continuous promotion of the bakery and got us the tourist market as well. The added bonus was that in the market you get paid the full price – there are no supermarket margins.” As to new trends, Esther says there’s demand for yeast breads, spelt bread and sourdoughs. There’s also a move back to good brown bread and scones.

“People are more conscious that the food you eat is your health. They know that good bread is good for you too.” CL

www.barronsbakery.ie

National Bread Week takes place on 11-17 September. For more information visit www.nationalbreadweek.ie