Sweet taste of success for Deborah's business

Deborah Kilroy has a love of chocolate – the difference between her and other lovers of the sweet treat is that she has made a business out of it with her husband Rob.

A native of Carracastle, Deborah and her Dutch-born chocolatier husband Rob have moved back to Mayo in recent years. While in Amsterdam, they set up Van Velze’s Chocolates and have now transferred that business to Ballinrobe. They make their artisan chocolate creations in their premises in the South Mayo town and are now incorporating local ingredients into the final product.

I sat down with Deborah in her chocolate heaven, while she had a break from busy Valentine’s preparations.

Angelina: Deborah, thank you for talking to me - can you tell us a little bit about your background?

Deborah: I'm from Carracastle and I went to the local national school before going on to secondary school in Charlestown. From there I went to college in Dublin to study hotel and catering management. I always wanted to have my own business in the hotel and catering sector, making cakes or that kind of thing.

Angelina: Where do you think that love came from?

Deborah: Well, I always liked baking, but I don't know if I was very good at it! And I worked as a waitress for a time and I think that catering environment rubbed off on me. I worked through college and then I ended up just travelling the world with that experience. You can go anywhere with that experience and qualification in hotel and catering. I went to France for a summer when I was around 19 and I loved it. I worked for a while in Dublin when I finished college. And then I thought, I'm too young for this. So off I went to Australia and I had a great time.

Angelina: How long did you spend in Australia?

Deborah: I only got the visa for a year. And then I did everything but hotel and catering! It was great. I worked on a cattle farm and I had the best time ever. I met my now husband Rob in Darwin back in 2002, and he is Dutch, so that caused another problem because I was planning to go home to Mayo and live there, but then obviously that changed. 

We went to New Zealand for a period and then he was staying in New Zealand, so I came home and worked at home for a while, and then I wanted to go back to New Zealand to be with Rob. When we did come back to Ireland, we lived in Galway. But he was still kind of travelling and wanted to go home to Holland. So then I stayed a little while in Galway and worked there and, eventually, I went to Holland to be with him. 

We both wanted our own business. But it doesn't happen just like that. I had the language barrier to contend with for one thing.

Angelina: So what did your business look like, and when you did start it, Deborah?

Deborah: I wanted cakes and Rob wanted chocolate. But the idea of a cafe and cakes, like we know here in Ireland, doesn't work really in Holland. So we compromised! Rob wanted to make chocolates and I wanted to make gifts. 

We found a premises. Rob's cousin was an accountant. We did the bank thing and made it look professional. I just call it winging it. His cousin made a great big plan for us, how it's all going to work. And then the reality hits. You've got to go and get your loan from the bank. You've got to pretend you can speak Dutch and sign everything and say, yes, I agree, I understand. 

The locals were very nice to us in Amsterdam. We started in an area that wasn't very urbanised at the time. The locals were amazed and they were like, 'Who are these crazy ones coming and starting a fancy chocolate shop in the middle of nowhere?' It turns out that area is very hip now. We had loads of friends and they all helped us.

Angelina: So how long were you in business there?

Deborah: We were in that unit from 2008 to 2019 and then the unit was sold. I wanted to move home anyway at that stage. I hadn't been at home since I was younger and I just wanted to live in Mayo. Then Covid happened and we stayed in Holland during that period. We had a pop-up shop for Covid in the city centre of Amsterdam and that was just amazing. We were so busy online.

Angelina: So when did you make the move home?

Deborah: We did the pop-up shop from October until April. It was actually an ice-cream shop that closes in the winter. So we moved in and they moved out, it was perfect. 

But I knew in my heart that it was time to come home but because of our online presence, we could do that seamlessly because we can still supply our clients in Holland with what we produce here. Like, I can go back to Amsterdam now and people don't even know I've gone. 

But now I'm trying to build it up again in Mayo. We moved back in 2022. But we went back then for six months to live and to keep moving our stuff over here gradually. 

Angelina: You're very passionate about your business and the product Deborah - you put a lot of love into it.

Deborah: The thing I like about it is that Rob is very particular, which is very annoying sometimes, but it's absolutely brilliant when he makes the product. And I do the packaging and the finish - the gifting part. So we are a good team and we do want the end result to be perfect for people.

Angelina: If I asked you what makes your product unique what would you say?

Deborah: What you can't see is the quality of the cocoa bean - it's Trinitario Cacao and a little bit of Creola - just a small percentage of the world's cocoa is that quality of bean. So it looks lovely like other products look lovely, but what happens is when you taste this, you can taste it forever. And you remember that it was that nice. So if you give this as a gift to someone, they'll remember that it was nice and lovely. It's the feeling of love that you get when you get a nice product.

Angelina: Since you moved into the premises in Ballinrobe, you've been using local Mayo produce in the chocolate?

Deborah: Yes, we do. We wanted sea salt chocolates and Rob was using fleur de sel from France. But you've got Achill Island Sea Salt produced near us and it's so cool. And we use local honey, the milkman comes with the local cream. It's just lovely. 

We put so much research into our chocolates - we actually went to Costa Rica to visit the farmer there and he showed us around. In the beginning, we only got cocoa from Costa Rica on that farm, and it was a lovely experience to visit. Our logo represents the cocoa fruit cut in half. It's very unique, I think, and it sums up an awful lot about the product.

Angelina: What continues to drive you Deborah?

Deborah: The joy that people will get when they get this gift - it's very simple. And the fact it's now on their doorstep. You can have a beautiful product. I suppose I'm a hard worker and I don't mind working. I love projects, so Valentine's Day and Easter are two of my favourite times of the year because I can get stuck into a theme. 

I go a bit crazy at Valentine's. We've put various things into chocolate to mark special occasions. I had a lady -  her husband qualified as a doctor - and she got a kid's stethoscope and put it in the egg and she was delighted with herself. Nike launched a new shoe and at the launch, the new shoe came out of the egg. A company that was merging with another had a milk chocolate egg and a dark chocolate egg, and they joined them together, and then they put the names of the staff on them to make them feel like they were part of something going forward.

Angelina: What are your hopes for the business in Ballinrobe?

Deborah: We kept the name Van Velze’s because I wanted people to remember the quality from Holland and bring that through. We've built that up for many years so people remember and people order because they know it's high quality. Someone ordered from Spain today for someone in Mayo. We had a couple who live in Amsterdam and they were coming home to Clare and they wanted to order the chocolates in Holland, but we weren't there. And then they rang us here and we could send it to Clare. So I want everyone to know that they can get a lovely chocolate gift in Mayo, proper European-style chocolates.