Irish Country Living is a little in awe of Caroline Keeling.

“So, we read you are a champion kickboxer?” we proffer, feeling slightly stalkerish after a morning on deepest, darkest Google.

“Not a champion kickboxer,” the Keelings CEO laughs gently, “but I did kickbox.”

“And,” we continue, consulting our notes, “you have played polo for Ireland despite only taking it up in 2009?”

Modestly, she demurs: “I play a bit.”

“And what about learning Mandarin to do business in China?”

“I can ask for a glass of water,” she smiles. “It’s going to take me a year to learn properly, but by the end I should be able to do, if not the negotiation for a deal, then an awful lot of the discussions.”

(After a two-day crash course in London, she has actually been teaching herself by listening to CDs, 30 minutes each day on her drive home from work.)

That’s before we even broach her achievements as head of the family fruit company, which boasts a turnover of €300m, employs 2,000 staff, grows €26m of Irish produce – from peppers to pumpkins – and procures from 42 countries worldwide.

It’s an extraordinary success story. Especially when you consider that while a third-generation business, the company only launched its own Keelings brand in 2012.

Established in 1937 by Caroline’s grandparents, William and Christine, the Keeling family originally supplied the Dublin markets with fresh fruit and vegetables from their farm. Her father Joseph then took the reins, and Caroline (the only girl in-between two brothers) has fond memories of the farm, including the pocket money-making opportunities.

“We used to get an extra penny for picking the bottom row of mushrooms,” she recalls, explaining how her father instilled in her a deep work ethic.

Just as influential was her mother Mary, a Montessori teacher. While Caroline was diagnosed with mild dyslexia as a child, Mary helped her overcome any obstacles she met from an early age.

“Although I still am not quite sure of my left and right and various things like that, so on my driving test and even in my kickboxing I used to have L and R on my gloves so I knew which one was which,” says Caroline.

“But thank God for computers and spell check and my wonderful PA, Delia. It’s not a huge issue for me now. When I’m very tired, my spelling would get worse and I don’t know why people call it dyslexia because that’s one of the words I can’t spell.”

It certainly did not hold her back. Having decided to study physics at college, Caroline switched to chemistry and graduated with a masters in food science.

She worked in Green Isle before her father asked her to come on board.

“I said I’d do two years and that way I could give everything I learned,” she says, adding that working in the British end of the business in the early years gave her space to find her feet.

“I think you should have to prove yourself a little more,” says Caroline about working in a family business. “You get loads of good things, you get loads of opportunities, you hear everything about what’s going on, so you have to deliver more.”

She certainly got the opportunity after stepping up as CEO in 2006, although the economy came crashing down just as they doubled berry production on their farm.

Hence the decision for Keelings to brand its own products for the first time to connect with the consumer. A success that can be measured, for example, by the fact that the company is on track to sell one million of its branded snack pots by Christmas, which are targeted at getting people to eat their five-a-day the easy way.

“We really do appreciate the support consumers have given us,” says Caroline, “and [we hope that] when the customer picks up our product that we exceed their expectations.”

Indeed, in one year alone, Keelings conducted 70 research projects on strawberries. By December it will have grown 150m this year.

Having concentrated mostly on the Irish and British markets, Keelings also started to look further afield, using the contacts it had through procurement, and now supply everywhere from the Park ‘n’ Shop chain in Hong Kong to Carrrefour in France.

“It’s quite funny because you go in to a Carrrefour and you see Keelings branded pineapples,” says Caroline, who adds that recent orders have come in from Singapore and India.

But it’s not just fruit that Keelings is selling. Having developed its own in-house software in the late 1980s, the company recently began to license the system to customers internationally, including China where Keelings has set up an office in Shanghai.

(Caroline actually carries a red business card holder as the colour is considered lucky there.)

Closer to home, Keelings is also developing a centre of excellence for food in Ireland by inviting other companies to set up shop on its site at FoodCentral.

While Caroline says that it is her job to always look at the bigger picture, she credits not only the support of the Keelings team, but also her brothers David and William, who oversee the retail/wholesale, farming and property end of the business, as well as her father, who is still chair of the company.

Of course, there is a saying that with a family businesses, the first generation starts it, the second builds it and the third spends it. So what’s the secret to Keelings continued success?

Sharing a respect for the business, responds Caroline, talking to each other and knowing when to listen.

“I’d be a competitive person,” she says as an example, “so if we are having a debate about what’s the right thing to do I might be slightly competitive and want my view to win, as opposed to genuinely hearing what everybody is saying and going: ‘Actually, David has the best view as to where we should be moving forward and I need to shut up now and not have my ego want to win’.”

Today is a typical day for Caroline, if there is such a thing as typical. After an 8am meeting in Portlaoise, it was back to Keelings headquarters near Dublin airport, before attending a reception at the Chinese embassy that evening. But her job could literally take her to north Pakistan is search of citrus fruits, or to Beijing to present at a food conference.

Of course, Caroline is one of the few female CEOs in the food industry, though does not see it as a challenge, if anything “you tend to be a little more memorable”.

“I think if you want to get on in Ireland, being a woman isn’t going to inhibit that,” she states. Though she laughs as she recalls a business trip to Brazil where she was asked: “Why are you a woman?!”

Cue biology lesson?

“I think they were slightly horrified that the business had sent a woman to them,” she laughs.

We’re tempted to suggest the kickboxing skills might have come in handy there, but Caroline Keeling just lets her results do the talking. And that includes in Mandarin too.