Castlebar bakery has X factor for Dragons’ Den

MAKING DOUGH Simon Stenson (left) pictured on Dragons Den with his investor SeΡn O'Neill after O'Neill invested €200,000 in Stenson's Cherry Blossom Bakery in Castlebar.

Castlebar’s Cherry Blossom bread has X-factor for Dragons’ Den


Áine Ryan
aineryan@mayonews.ie

WITH a whopping investment of €200,000 Cherry Blossom Bakery, Castlebar, has definitely got the X-factor for RTE’s Dragons Den. And for baker Simon Stenson it has to be the icing on the cake that he received the single-biggest investment made by the show’s entrepreneurs since its inception.
It will now ensure further expansion for the specialist bakery, which coincidentally is due to go nationwide this week in Super-Valu and Centra shops.
Speaking to The Mayo News yesterday, Simon Stenson confided he was dying of the ‘flu on the day the programme, broadcast last Sunday night, was recorded back in January.  
“I was absolutely bowled over when SeΡn O’Sullivan offered me the €200,000, albeit for a 40 per cent stake rather than my offer of 30 per cent. But I had allowed for wriggle room and even though I knew I was asking for a lot of money, I felt confident going in,” Simon Stenson said.
Likened by the programme-makers to ‘a poster boy’ for the tough road out of recession, Simon Stenson says that a three-month course at the famous Ballymaloe House Cookery School, after two years of unemployment, helped him make the transition from being an out-of-work builder to a baker.
Unsurprisingly, the fact that Taoiseach Enda Kenny brought some of his Traditional Brown Bread to the White House as a Saint Patrick’s Day present last year helped to give the brand ‘good recognition’.
“But from the start our turnover figures were pretty good and we hit a turnover of half-a-million euro in year-two which was very good for a start-up company in the middle of a recession and particularly in an overcrowded market,” says Stenson.
The business now employs 14 but started out in the kitchen of his parents’ pub in Ballyvary with just one employee, Stenson himself.
He puts his success down to good initial research with Bord Bia which, for example, showed that Irish people had become increasingly health-conscious and, moreover, that spelt products were making a resurgence.  
“From day-one the focus for me was ‘quality and consistency’.
We source nearly all our products locally such as buttermilk, eggs and butter and only buy the best quality flour. This ensures our distinctive good flavour,” he added.
The final episode of this series of Dragons’ Den also saw successful pitches pitches for a mobile phone App and a GAA product.
While the Dragons spent €250,000 in total, the Mayo entrepreneur was the big winner.
He confirmed that he and SeΡn O’Sullivan have already begun working on their development plans.
Millionaire O’Sullivan is not only a successful entrepreneur with multi-million technology companies abroad and here in Kinsale. Born in New York and now based in west Cork, he has worked as a freelance photographer during the Iraq war, is a licensed helicopter pilot and a member of the National Academy of Popular Music in the US.

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www.cherryblossombakery.ie, www.rte.ie/tv/dragonsden