Gold in sheds and sweets!

Two Galway entrepreneurs – one designing labour-saving farm sheds and the other looking after the sweet tooth – have taken home top awards in the Irish Business Design Challenge 2021.

Gráinne Mullins of Grá Chocolates in Loughrea won the micro business category, while Paul Lyons of Bo Steel in Athenry was named a joint winner of the small/medium category with Dublin company, Aqueduct – The Well Water.

The Twelve Hotel in Bearna was also named a runner-up in the small/medium category.

The win for Grá Chocolates was all the sweeter, given that it was born out of adversity – after founder Gráinne Mullins hit an early hurdle when the fragile stock was becoming damaged in transit.

That left Gráinne with a packaging redesign challenge that would not only protect her hand-painted chocolates to be shipped all across Europe and retain their integrity, but one that would also showcase the unique offering of the product itself.

Gráinne Mullins was drawn to IBDC precisely because of its design focus, a discipline close to her heart.

“It’s been very important to me from the very beginning to tell a story through a beautiful medium and that’s all done through the design,” she said.

“Sometimes you don’t even see the detail in design we’ve put in, it can be so subtle. Entering gave us a chance to reflect on what we have done to date – all the hard work that we’ve put in to make our product what it is, but winning this award gives us a great boost.

“It shows all that hard work is really paying off. We’re moving to a new location very soon, so we’re expanding, and the prize money will help us build the most perfect little chocolate factory possible,” she said.

Bo Steel Ltd is an agricultural engineering company founded by Paul Lyons in Athenry. The company specializes in cattle handling solutions, more specifically niche products that help enhance safety on Irish farms and improve both the lives of farmers and farm animals alike.

Addressing the global shortage of farm labour and the concept of building a “one person operation”, Lyons and his team designed and created a suckler beef winter housing shed.

Instead of outsourcing all the elements, Bo Steel integrated each of them into a customer-driven solution that makes it easier and more efficient for single handling, with a clear focus on safety – both for farmer and livestock.

“It’s been a twelve-year slog to get the business off the ground,” admitted Paul.

“I started it in 2007, just as things started to go south and any of the products we have, they took every ounce of energy and money we had at the time to get them off the ground, so winning this competition is just incredible recognition that we have a top-class product and methodology.

“I’ve already earmarked the prize money for more R&D as the one-person farm is a concept everyone was striving for, but what we’ve done has achieved it,” he said.

First launched in 2020, the Irish Business Design Challenge supports companies applying clever design solutions to meet their customer’s needs. The competition was open to entries from micro, small and medium Irish enterprises.

Run by Design & Crafts Council Ireland in partnership with Enterprise Ireland, the Local Enterprise Offices and supported by the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment, the competition showcases the ‘business heroes’ in the MSME sector.

The strongest entries demonstrated how they have created meaningful and innovative solutions. The businesses that received the most public votes were then shortlisted, before being evaluated by the judges, Charlotte Barker, Daryl Regan, Tommy Murray and Breda Fox, who selected the overall winners.