The founder of Lily O'Briens is always seeking new ingredients to add to the mix that changed a tiny business into an operation with a €20 million turnover, writes Claire Shoesmith

Mary Ann O'Brien oozes enthusiasm just like her sticky toffee chocolates ooze toffee - in abundance.

Not satisfied that she has grown Lily O'Briens - the chocolate company named after her eldest daughter - from a small business based in her own kitchen to an operation that last year turned over €20 million, she is constantly on the look out for things to improve, expand or change.

"Innovation is what we are about," says the 46-year-old mother of three, who is also the founder and managing director of Lily O'Briens. "That's where we, as a small company, have the advantage."

And small is something that is key for the Carrick-on-Suir native at the moment. Despite targeting revenues of more than €40 million by 2011 and planning for further expansion in the US, increased market penetration in the UK, and even the possibility of developing a retail chain, she is keen to keep things under control.

"Last year we grew too fast and this year I'm going to put the brakes on," she says. The revenue target for 2006 is between €22.5 million and €23 million.

According to O'Brien, there are too many other things going on in the business at the moment, including the introduction of a new technology system and the addition of €1 million of new machinery. All this needs to be complete before she feels she can focus on growing the business further.

Still, it's hard to imagine O'Brien being fazed by much. In fact, she is remarkably jovial about everything, including that fact that she - an Irish person - is this week due to address a chocolate symposium in Belgium.

"It's kind of ironic that I am speaking to them," she says, recalling how the Belgians, who along with the Swiss are considered to be the world authority on chocolate, laughed at her when she first exhibited her wares at a trade fair.

"They have chocolate in their veins, the Belgians," she says with a grin.

For O'Brien, it has been more about determination, and this is likely to have been a significant factor in her being named Image magazine's Businesswoman of the Year this week.

O'Brien spent her late teens and early 20s travelling around the US and New Zealand, doing anything from riding out horses to serving hamburgers. She came across the idea of making chocolates while recuperating from an illness in South Africa in 1992.

Not one for sitting around - she was previously forced to give up her event business because of ill health - she befriended the hotel owner's daughter and was soon in the hotel kitchen watching her make high-class chocolates.

With €15 worth of chocolate moulds in her luggage, she returned to Ireland and started experimenting in her own kitchen, an activity she is still partial to today.

From her kitchen came chocolate lion heads, pigs and crocodiles. She sold these from the boot of her car until she got her big break in 1993, when she walked into a Superquinn outlet in Lucan with a tray of chocolates and persuaded the manager to give them a go.

"Within a year the Belgians were gone and I was in," she says of the business that at the time comprised just her and one other person. "We did everything," she recalls. "The manufacturing, delivering, selling, labelling - whatever needed doing."

In 1995 Superquinn became the company's first major client and O'Brien has never looked back since.

Lily O'Briens, which employs 110 people at a factory in Newbridge, Co Kildare, now counts most major retail outlets among its clients. It attributes much of the business's growth to the brand awareness created through agreements with major airlines, including Aer Lingus and British Airways, which account for about 18 per cent total revenue.

"Planes take off every day of the year and their passengers eat chocolates every day of the year, while traditional confectionery seasons such as Christmas, Valentine's and Easter occur just once a year," says O'Brien.

The seasonal factor of the business is something she is looking to address. While the rest of us have just had Valentine's Day and haven't even thought about Easter eggs yet, Lily O'Briens is already putting Christmas 2007 to bed and even thinking about next year's Valentine's Day.

Expanding into other areas such as biscuits - Lily O'Briens sold 3.5 million cookies last year - may also help, though you wouldn't want to bet that product expansion will stop at biscuits.

Lily O'Briens was last year named Irish Food and Drink Exporter of the Year by the Irish Exporters Association, an award linked without doubt to the fact that as much as 80 per cent of group revenue comes from exports. England, the US and Australia are the group's main markets and, while the brand is in demand elsewhere - O'Brien has had enquiries from as far afield as Dubai and Malta - she is keen to stick with what it has for now.

The same goes for a retail offering. While it is something she is considering, she also believes it requires a certain amount of time - something she doesn't have a lot of right now.

What time she does have is taken up juggling her youngest daughter - the only one left at home - the business and charity work. (She and her husband set up the Jack & Jill Foundation, which supports families with severely brain-damaged children."

As far as the business goes, O'Brien is very hands-on. As well as attending management meetings, she is involved in marketing, developing new products and, though you wouldn't think it to look at her, tasting.

Adamant that the intention is to keep Lily O'Briens based in Ireland, O'Brien is quick to point out the difficulties facing manufacturers here. Not only are wage costs high, but so are general overheads. The company is having to become more clever in the way it uses automation, while ensuring it preserves the "handmadeness" of its chocolate. As a result, O'Brien has just bought a new decorating machine where each individual action is different.

Lily O'Briens cookies are made in the UK, but while O'Brien won't rule out further outsourcing, the fact that she plans to double the size of the Newbridge factory over the next two years shows that she has some confidence in the Irish market.

Unlike rivals Green & Black's, which was recently taken over by Cadbury, O'Brien believes that being so involved in the chocolate-making process herself is what makes the company special. In contrast, Green & Black's has always outsourced its production.

That doesn't mean it's all local, however. The cocoa beans come from plantations in Africa and South America and are made into liquid chocolate in Belgium. However, the key, according to O'Brien, is that everything is done according to the Lily O'Briens recipe.

So whatever the future holds for Lily O'Briens, whether it be a retail chain developed through an acquisition, or the expansion of the organic element as O'Brien herself would like, it is hard to imagine the lady herself not playing a large part.

Factfile

Name:Mary Ann O'Brien

Age:46

Position:Managing director of Lily O'Briens chocolates

Family: Married to Jonathan Irwin with three children

Interests:cooking, gardening, golf

Why is she in the news:O'Brien was this week named Image Magazine'sBusinesswoman of the Year

Education: Ursuline Convent, Waterford, studied French and History of Art at Grenoble University in France