Early this October, Daniel Linehan and Georgia Quealy – who own and operate Bon Chocolatiers in Tullamore – were in Dingle for the Blas na h’Éireann awards. They were enjoying some well-deserved wins for their line of artisanal chocolate bars and hand-painted chocolates: a silver for their signature chocolate collection and, also, Best in County for Offaly.
The previous year, they were famously absent from the awards despite being named the 2025 Supreme Champion. The reason? Their daughter, Fia, was born earlier that day. With all of this in mind, their 2026 trip to Dingle was extra-special – they were celebrating their daughter’s first birthday as well as their achievements within the Irish artisanal food community.
Serious fire
To keep the momentum going, a few days later, they launched a new chocolate bar with sisters Evie and Eliza Ward of Nutshed called “Peanut Butter Lover”. The bar features salted caramel, a crunchy Nutshed peanut butter filling and creamy milk chocolate. Customers went wild for the new flavour and orders were flying in from the website.
Then, on 14 October, Daniel shared a video on Instagram. In it, he explained that there had been a serious fire in the production unit next to their own. While, luckily, no one was hurt in the fire, there was extensive smoke damage to their chocolate factory which rendered all of their equipment, stock and ingredients completely unusable.
“We were coming home on such a high from Dingle,” Daniel tells Irish Country Living. “When the fire started, I was making more of our Nutshed collaboration bars. In fact, if you walked in the unit right now, the bars are still there on the table with the caramel added in – smoked caramel now, I suppose.”
Jokes aside (though, in this case, if you don’t laugh, you’ll cry), if Daniel and the operator of their neighbouring unit hadn’t been on site the evening of the fire, the damage would likely have been much worse.
“These new Nutshed bars were so popular, I said I’d work late and make some more,” he explains. “I had just finished the caramel and was excited to show our neighbour a new work vehicle I had gotten, so I went next door and we were chatting away.
“Then, we heard the smoke alarm go off. We thought it was probably nothing, but I went inside to check our caramel cooker. There was nothing wrong with our unit, so I went back outside. That’s when we saw the smoke just pouring out of every door, window and crack in the unit on the other side.
“I ran back inside and the side of our unit attached to theirs was just filled with smoke. It all happened in the space of a few minutes. I rang the fire brigade and luckily, our neighbour remembered the gas gauge, so we turned off the gas. Within ten minutes the fire brigade was there.”
\Allen Kiely
A forensic investigation is ongoing as to the source of the fire, and at the time of writing, the unit is still not safe enough for the investigation to be completed. Daniel and Georgia say this was most definitely an accident and no one is at fault.
“It so easily could have been us,” Georgia says. “No matter the cause, it was an accident. It was completely random, and it is just as devastating to the other business involved.”
Daniel is visibly emotional as he describes walking through their unit after the fire had been extinguished. It was a confusing time: they had no way of gauging the extent of the damage and what it would mean for their business.
“We weren’t sure if we could get a professional cleaning company to come in and take care of the smoke,” Georgia says. “As the days went on, we discovered the smoke damage was much worse than we thought. Just thank God no one was hurt. The first few days after, that was all I could think: ‘This is awful, but everyone is home and safe.’”
Daniel adds, “We had a fireman go through the unit with us to assess the damage. I said, ‘Just tell it to me straight,’ and he replied, ‘You need to wake up tomorrow and assume the whole building has burnt down.’ It was hard to hear, but at least then we had to accept that we’d be starting from scratch.”
Starting again
Finding a move-in-ready production unit for a food business is next to impossible, particularly in rural Ireland. For Daniel and Georgia, this unit had come at just the right moment – they were ready to scale and, once they had the keys, they could just roll in their equipment.
After the fire, they realised they would need to find a new production unit and access their insurance to cover their lost equipment. Unfortunately, they didn’t have business interruption cover, so the insurance won’t cover their recurring monthly costs, or the cost of moving to and fitting out a new unit.
“Our payments are still due each month, and we have a family of our own to provide for, but we won’t have any income from the business until we move into a new premises,” Daniel explains. “We didn’t have business interruption cover and, in the end, that’s on us. Since the fire, a lot of our friends who have businesses have been in touch with their brokers to check their policies and make sure they’re covered for any eventuality.
“It’s unfortunate that we have to be the ones to learn this lesson, but now we can show other businesses how important it is to be covered for the right things. When we started the business, we went directly to an insurance company, and they gave us exactly what we asked for. The problem was, I didn’t really know what I needed. Looking back, a broker would have walked us through it and made sure we had the right cover. You might pay a little more, but it’s a really valuable service, especially when you’re starting out.”
Whatever it takes
Despite this setback, the couple say that soon after the fire they agreed to do whatever it would take to get back on their feet. Once that was decided, they had to come to terms with another crushing blow: they would be missing out on the 2026 Christmas season.
When news of the fire got out, nearly every chocolate company in Ireland got in touch to offer their support and, in some cases, even their premises to help them keep up production. They were floored by the kindness of their peers, but in many ways, it would be even more complicated to produce their chocolates on someone else’s site.
“Christmas is gone; I hate saying it, but we will have next year,” Daniel says. “The day we were talking about potentially working in another premises, I said, ‘Georgia, we don’t even have any moulds. We don’t have any spray guns.’ All these tools we’ve bought over the last six years, it’s all gone now.”
As luck would have it, the pair recently found a new production site just down the road. While this new unit is larger and, in many ways, will be a good fit for their growing enterprise, it is not kitted out for food production. It will take some time, but in this case, assessing their current and future needs is a smart move. Aside from selling their chocolate in independent shops and online, Daniel and Georgia also supply the Dunnes Stores Simply Better range.
“We had big plans [with Simply Better] this Christmas, and they said, ‘Don’t worry, your orders will still be here – in volume – once you’re back,’” Daniel says. “It’s funny, this past August I was emailing with the Local Enterprise Office about finding a bigger premises. The fire is the push we never asked for, but it looks like it’s going to get us where we need to go.”
Despite plans being in motion, Daniel and Georgia still have to grapple with the staggering costs of business interruption while they aren’t producing chocolate or earning an income. Luckily, their community of family, friends, fellow food businesses and customers have worked together to help them raise vital funds.
To date, a GoFundMe campaign set up by one of Georgia’s family members has raised nearly €40,000. Their friends at Nutshed organised an elaborate raffle full of great food and hospitality prizes. They also teamed up with other Irish businesses, including the folk behind Gifted at the RDS, Kenwood Ireland and Neven Maguire’s MacNean House Restaurant, and 100% of the proceeds were sent directly to Daniel and Georgia.
The couple once again become emotional when they consider the many ways their fellow food producers have rallied around them.
“The support from everyone has pushed us through,” Georgia says. “In the first few days, we didn’t know what was going on and our minds were going to really negative places. Knowing people care about us in the industry and in our lives, that’s what gives us the drive to keep going.
“We’ve committed to getting back on our feet and we know there is so much more weighing in on this. Not just for ourselves, but for our customers and community.”
