E307 That Great Business Show She Started on Her Parents’ Kitchen Counter. Now she's aiming for Selfridges | Gráinne Mullins

Gráinne Mullins thought 2020 was going to be her year.

She had just won Young Chef of the Year.

Then Covid arrived.

Restaurants closed.

Everything in the diary disappeared.

So Gráinne went home to East Galway and started making hand-painted chocolates on her parents’ kitchen counter.

That little experiment became Grá Chocolates.

The first online launch sold out in just over five minutes.

Actually, it did better than that.

The website crashed and accidentally sold twice as much chocolate as Gráinne had made.

Fast forward. Grá Chocolates now employs 18 people, with more joining at peak times.

Every single chocolate is still hand-painted.

And Gráinne has just set up UK distribution, now Selfridges and Harrods are firmly on the hit list.

In between came one other fairly useful development.

She entered the Stelios North–South Business Cooperation Awards.

The application took about 15 minutes.

Then came a Zoom with Stelios Haji-Ioannou himself.

Then came the phone call.

Grá Chocolates and Northern Ireland partner Needi won €100,000.

And the money was in the bank within roughly three working days of the competition.

There is €500,000 available again this year through the Stelios Awards.

For the full practical detail on who qualifies, the prize structure and how to apply, listen to the Barry Sherry episode of That Great Business Show.

This episode is the other half of the story: what winning actually feels like — and what it can do for a young business.

Also in this episode:

• the Valentine’s Day disaster that ended with chocolates being hand-delivered around Ireland
• why Gráinne treats business competitions as a management exercise
• how Michelin kitchens taught her how to run a company
• why she wants to move production back to rural East Galway
• the importance of Northern Ireland as an obvious first export market
• and a remarkable 16-year-old employee who gets Gráinne’s Hire in a Heartbeat.

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