● Tell us a little bit about your business?
We are one of the original food stores in Ireland and our old-fashioned, family-values based approach of selling top quality produce sourced fresh from the markets and the best producers, has served our customers well over the years. We have two stores. Our original store is located on Dunville Avenue in Ranelagh and we have been in this location for over 80 years. Our second store is located in the old Hatch St. Train station in Dublin 2.
● Tell us one thing that you wish everyone knew about your establishment?
We are a community shop – run by the members FOR the members!! We have a lot of volunteers so it’s a real family atmosphere. Child friendly too!
● What’s your favourite music to listen to while working?
We have quite the mix here but local is best – superb local Limerick bands are top of our list!
● What’s your favourite Wellnice Pops?
We love them all! Dee is the Chairperson and her favourite is the lemon sucker – it’s so sharp and refreshing. Most of the kids who come here love the Frost Beet and the Two Carat Diamond.
● What do your customers say about Wellnice Pops?
They love that they are a sugar-free and healthy treat for their kids on a hot day. They love that they’re made locally!
● If you were to create a new pop flavour, what would it be?
Brussels Sprouts and pineapple!!!
In conversation with Deirdre McMahon, Chairperson, The Urban Co-Op
● Tell us a little bit about your business?
We are one of the original food stores in Ireland and our old-fashioned, family-values based approach of selling top quality produce sourced fresh from the markets and the best producers, has served our customers well over the years. We have two stores. Our original store is located on Dunville Avenue in Ranelagh and we have been in this location for over 80 years. Our second store is located in the old Hatch St. Train station in Dublin 2.
● Tell us one thing that you wish everyone knew about your establishment?
In August 2017 we will be re-launching our Dunville Avenue store with a fresh new look and concept. The store will be focusing even more on its own fresh offering as well as introducing new artisan brands to the store sourced from all around the country.
● What’s your favourite music to listen to while working?
I can’t listen to music while working. It is too distracting and working in such a busy store there is so much going on around me I don’t need any more distractions 😊
● What’s your favourite Wellnice Pops?
Lemon Sucker
● What do your customers say about Wellnice Pops?
Our customers have really taken to Wellnice Pops. We knew they would too. They are such a great concept and when we discovered the brand back in 2016 we just had to get them into the store.
● If you were to create a new pop flavour, what would it be?
Guava, watermelon & passionfruit. (I have no idea how that would taste)
In conversation with Niall O’Sullivan, Fresh Food Manager, Mortons
Wednesday the 19th of July was a very exciting day for Team Wellnice. After years or wondering what lay beyond the glass doors of Facebook HQ in Dublin, we were invited in!
A few weeks back, we received an email from Facebook asking us if we’d be interested in joining their Irish SME client council. Of course, we jumped at the chance, despite admittedly not really knowing what it entailed (typical of us!). We had the date and the venue but that was it.
When we received the next email with the details we were even more excited!! Facebook had booked us into The Marker Hotel and invited us to dinner at The Drury Buildings the night before the Council launch - well nice indeed!!
As luck would have it though, we got tied up at work (making the ice pops for Tiger Street Eats) and missed the dinner. It was just before midnight when we arrived at the hotel and BJ got upgraded to a corner suite - swit swoo!! It’s a shame we didn’t get to enjoy it more, but we had to be at Facebook HQ for 8:30 am.
Now I don’t know if any of you have ever been to the Facebook offices on Grand Canal, but they take security very seriously, and rightly so! Once we were checked in, we were treated to breakfast and introduced to the other attendees. 14 businesses had been invited - some were old friends, and others we’re happy to say are new friends!
As well as us there was Strong Roots, Boutique Bakes, Obeo, Magee, Kerrigan’s Food for Fitness, The Burren Perfumery, Aran Sweater Market, Appassionata Flowers, Ronan Cullen Flooring, Lennon Courtney, Lifestyle Sports, Folkster and Jobbio.
Over the course of the day we had workshops from Facebook, and were asked to give them plenty of feedback on what they’ve got in the pipeline. We were told that Facebook treats feedback as a gift - that’s pretty cool in our opinion. The whole day was really intensive but so valuable. We enjoyed tours of the offices, excellent food and got to try Oculus! When we were leaving, they even gave us all goody bags. Go Facebook!
Megan the person responsible for the client council in the US was flown in for the day from San Francisco. In a strange turn of events, she knows one Irish person, Ciara, who just so happens to be BJ’s cousin! Talk about feeding into the stereotype that all us Irish folk know each other!
Read more about it here.
Do you listen to the Sunday Business Show on Today FM? We’re big fans here at Wellnice HQ - Team SBS all the way!
We first bumped into Ruth & Niall last year at the Uprize festival in the RDS. We spoke to them on the day and did a short sound bite for the show. Our next direct contact with them was a few weeks ago. Ruth contacted us on Twitter to see if we’d be interested in coming into the studio for an interview. Ahhh - yes please :-)
We must admit it was quite surreal pulling up to Marconi house at 9 am on a Sunday morning. To be honest, we were wrecked!! We were after a week of in-store tastings, had barely recovered from Body & Soul, and what had been the test of endurance leading up to it! This probably worked to our advantage though - it meant we weren’t nervous at all!
The whole SBS team are fantastic! Nothing like having a cuppa and the chats in the green room with the one and only Conall O Móráin and our fellow guests to help us warm up. It was great to finally meet the lovely Clíona from Boost Bites (now Bella Bites) - we’ve been huge fans of her delicious bites for ages!! We had our future CEO with us. She was with us through the whole interview - at 9 years old, perhaps the youngest ever guest on the Sunday Business Show? Conall had warned us that the time would go very fast…..and oh was he right!! We were on a high afterwards and our phones literally didn’t stop for 2 days.
Thanks a mill again Conall, Ruth & Niall for the invite, and hopefully you’ll invite us back soon :-) You can have a listen here.
This past weekend, we had the great honour of collaborating with Tiger beer for their Tiger Street Eats party, a unique and exciting street food experience. It took place at Portobello Harbour from Thursday 20th to Saturday 22nd July. Under the watchful eye of Havas Media, the Mart Creative Hub was transformed to bring attendees some of the vibrancy and bustling energy of Singapore.
Tiger teamed up with Hawker Chan Hon Meng, owner of the first Michelin starred hawker stand, Hong Kong Soya Sauce Chicken Rice and Noodle in Singapore. The event has previously taken place in New York, Kuala Lumpur and Sydney, but this is the first time it’s been to Dublin.
“The Tiger Street Eats event is all about rewarding consumers who seek to live life with more bite” according to Deirdre O’Shea, brand manager for Tiger Beer at Heineken Ireland.
In line with the “life with more bite” theme, we created a bespoke ice pop made from fresh pineapple, fresh red chilli and of course Tiger Beer. We had great fun working with the team and hopefully it’s the first of many collaborations for Wellnice Pops!
Photo credit to: Joanne Cronin www.stitchandbear.com
So.. today was an exciting day at Wellnice HQ :-) After shooting off a quick email to Dermot & Dave at Today FM, we were delighted to get a call back saying that they’d do a jingly bit for Wellnice Pops!! (We sent them a pure funny email and we reckon that’s what sold it 😉 ) We had great fun chatting with them & we think the jingle is pretty hilarious! Have a listen and let us know what you think…
