Up to five years ago Ruth McGarry Quinn was a nurse specialising in the care of renal patients. Born in Longford, she had trained in Jervis Street Hospital, Dublin, and graduated in 1983. Nursing jobs at home were scarce at the time, so she moved to New York where her interest in chocolate-making took an unexpected twist through the help of a patient in her care.

"I was nursing the editor of a food magazine and we got talking about food and wine and eventually chocolate," says McGarry Quinn. "She had very good contacts in the food business and she asked me if I'd like to see how Lilacs, the oldest chocolate-makers in New York, made their chocolates. Of course, I said yes! I went down to watch and I was completely hooked. From then on I used go down to Lilacs during all my available spare time and I basically learnt the business that way."

However, there was quite a long gap between her training at Lilacs and McGarry Quinn actually setting up her own business. From New York she moved to London and became a specialist in renal care at Charing Cross Hospital.

"I've always loved nursing and I enjoyed the job in London very much. Because patients there have to wait such a long time for kidney transplants home dialysis is very common and my job was to look after people on home dialysis," she says.

McGarry Quinn moved back to Ireland in 1993 and was disappointed to find that nursing here had not progressed as far as she had hoped during her time away. "I suppose I was disillusioned with what I found and felt that I didn't want to stay nursing in this kind of an environment," she says.

"I also think you can get to a point in a career where you feel you've given it all you can give and that it's time to move on. I knew I wanted to do something else and it was my mother who suggested that I should move into my father's old surgery at home and give the chocolate making a try. I convinced two local shops to sell the truffles over Christmas of 1993 and I also attended the craft fair in the RDS.

"My mother and I got stuck in and we worked all the hours to meet the orders. I can still remember the pain in my back from all the standing ! But we got there and I was able to buy my first melting tank with the money we made . After that I went to Belgium to do a refresher course and we haven't had time to look back since."

McGarry Quinn had no experience of running a business and only her last week's wage packet as funding when she set the company up. "I just started and spent the first few years on a very steep learning curve," she says.

"We were well up and running before we got assistance from anyone," she says. "But I have to say that the local Enterprise Board have been great to us and we have been very lucky with our staff. They are a great bunch of people and the success of the company is due to great team work."

For the first two years of the business McGarry Quinn's husband, Joe, commuted to a job in Dublin to support the venture. He is now the company's production manager while McGarry Quinn looks after sales and marketing.

The truffles are completely handmade which McGarry Quinn says is crucial for the final taste. "Truffles which come off a production line simply do not taste the same," she says. "We do everything by hand and I think that's clear from the quality of the product. Unfortunately, we have to compete with chocolates which can be described as handmade once ten per cent of the work is done by hand."

By opting for a totally handmade truffle, the company has in effect made a decision about where its products can be sold. "We are not interested in business from big outlets or supermarket chains although we have been approached a number of times," McGarry Quinn explains. "We have an exclusivity and we want that to remain. Our export business is growing steadily and basically we sell into delis, craft shops, duty free and some off-licences."

The company is now operating from purpose-built premises in Longford and it has 12 people on the payroll. "We are very pleased to be providing jobs for local people and I think it's time organisations like Enterprise Ireland recognised that a strong small business sector is what's going to sustain local economies in the long-term," McGarry Quinn says.

"We are here to stay unlike the multinationals who breeze in and out as it suits them. Of course 12 jobs doesn't sound as dramatic as 50 or a 100 jobs with a bigger company, but we're here for the long haul and any money we make it being ploughed back into the local economy."

Apart from their truffle making operation, the McGarry Quinns also have a shop in Longford town where they sell their own speciality cakes and other Torc products such as sweet sauces, chutneys and handmade biscuits. Five people are employed in the shop. Most of the company's staff are recruited from the local domestic science college so they have an aptitude for working with food products and an awareness of food safety and hygiene.

"We're very happy with our staff and we sent one of our girls to Belgium to get a diploma in chocolate making so we are hoping to build up the company's skills in this way," McGarry Quinn says.

Opening a retail outlet allowed Torc to expand its range of goodies into products with a longer shelf life. "The truffles have a short time-span so we needed other items to balance out our range with other things such as chocolate bars, fudge and chocolate caramels (or as I call them 'Yuppie Rolos' )," McGarry Quinn says.

"I have to say that my mind is constantly in overdrive thinking about new products and sometimes I wish it would slow down. I have always tended to do everything myself but that is beginning to change, I'm learning to delegate and we are looking at getting in another person to work on sales and marketing."

The need to delegate came about last year when the McGarry Quinns lost their infant daughter. "It was a very difficult time for us but we are coming through it and it made us decided on our priorities," she says.

"We moved into a new premises last August so we're pleased about that and all in all we're very happy with how the business is going. I have never had so much job satisfaction in my life and I've never been so broke, but we're getting there and I feel there is light at the end of the tunnel."

Contact: Torc Truffles - phone (043) 47353.