After 18 years in Amsterdam, Deborah Kilroy returned to Ireland to establish Van Velze’s Luxury Chocolates in her native Mayo.
Van Velze’s Luxury Chocolates co-founder Deborah Kilroy is a recent alumni of the Irish Government’s Back for Business programme.
The development programme, which is now in its 8th year, was created to foster and support entrepreneurial activity among emigrants recently returned to Ireland and is funded by the Irish Abroad Unit, Department of Foreign Affairs.
“It was so lovely to meet like-minded people. I found my crew. They had also been away and had the same problems as I was encountering”
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Taste of the West
Kilroy, who is originally from Charlestown, Co Mayo, left Ireland for Australia in 2002 having worked as a manager in a catering department in Dublin after completing a degree in Hotel & Catering Management at Cathal Brugha Street.
“I went to Australia to have fun and enjoy my life. I thought I was too young for what I was doing. I needed to be free,” she says.
While in Darwin, in Australia’s Northern Territory, Deborah met her future husband Rob, a chocolatier from the Netherlands. They moved to Amsterdam in 2004 and opened Van Velze’s Chocolaterie and Patisserie in the heart of the city in 2008.
Deborah had always planned to start her own business and to move back home, but she spent 18 years in the hustle and bustle of Amsterdam before the lure of the West of Ireland finally drew her back to Mayo.
“Moving back was more for personal reasons than anything else. I wanted to move out of the city and home to the countryside and to see my family. I wanted to come home to be in the green fields,” she says.
The couple took a year off to settle into their new environment when they got here and then launched Van Velze’s Luxury Chocolates in Ballinrobe in November 2023.. Their company is also still operational in Amsterdam where their corporate clients include Netflix, Hermès, Sony, Nike and Baileys.
Van Velze’s is a luxury chocolate gifting company that produces chocolate collections for all occasions and for corporate gifting. Their chocolate is made with local Connacht Gold cream, and they use only fine flavour chocolate.
Their products are available online and by phone order, and they also have a pop-up shop that is open on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays at their production premises in Ballinrobe. Van Velze’s Luxury Chocolates are also available in three shops, including Foxford Woolen Mills.
“We ship all over Ireland and the Netherlands. Corporate clients and PR companies like to give a gift that leaves a lasting impression, and they contact us for customised gifts,” she says.
Deborah says that adjusting to life in rural Ireland after being used to Amsterdam wasn’t always easy, but she is pleased to be among family again. “We had to make a new set of friends, and we did that through joining a lot of sports groups. That was amazing. It was lovely,” she says.
In Amsterdam, most of Deborah’s friends had been sole traders, so she was delighted to meet other female entrepreneurs on the Back for Business programme. “It was so lovely to meet like-minded people. I found my crew. They had also been away and had the same problems as I was encountering. You know their pain and you know their joy. It was great. You shared what you were going through,” she says.
Although Deborah says their Irish business is only getting started, it is clearly on the right track as they recently won a Blas na hÉireann Award for their Sea Salted Caramel Truffle Box. “It’s lovely that people really enjoy our products and are happy to know that they can give a gift that people will find delicious,” she says.
With Valentine’s Day and Easter on the horizon Deborah is hoping to make the most of the opportunities those occasions present. “We’re hopeful that it’s very big. We want to grow the business here and in the Netherlands, and increase our retail presence,” she says.
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