Greystone's The Happy Pear, run by twins David and Stephen Flynn, has received €1.5 million funding which will be used to expand its healthy-eating shop and café empire in Dublin and possibly other Irish locations.
The funding was invested in Flynn and Flynn Global Trade, the holding company for the business, through a Davy and BDO-managed Employment Investment Incentive Scheme (EIIS) stated BDO Ireland. The Happy Pear, which was founded in 2004, has a turnover of €4 million and employs more than 100 staff. The twins, who advocate plant-based and wholefood eating, started off as a fruit and vegetable shop before growing The Happy Pear into a café and restaurant business.
Last year, the brothers opened Pearville HQ, a 14,000 square foot space in Kilcoole which houses a TV studio, coffee roastery, fermentation kitchen and two acres of vegetable growing land. Currently the business has a family-run natural food store, two cafés, a sprout farm, a Happy Pear brand food manufacturing and distribution business that makes pesto, hummus, granola, snack bars and smoothies that are sold in Supervalu and Centra stores. The twins have also published two best selling cookbooks and are developing a TV project that they hope to complete this year.
A spokesperson for the company said: "This funding is a really exciting development in our ongoing business story. We’re delighted to now have an opportunity to bring The Happy Pear to new locations where we hope it’ll have a really positive impact on the local community and provide exciting new employment opportunities. We hope to establish new Happy Pear locations in the Dublin area in 2017, with plans for further expansion over the coming years."
