‘I built a chocolate factory next to my home and can smell cocoa beans on my doorstep – I’m today’s female Willy Wonka’

A mother who built a “dreamy” chocolate factory just metres from her home and can smell the roasting cocoa beans from her doorstep has said she would describe herself as today’s “female Willy Wonka”.

Kasha Connolly, 43, the creative director of Hazel Mountain Chocolate, located between Galway Bay and the Burren Mountains in Ireland, has always loved baking, learning her skills from her mother and grandfather growing up in Poland.

She moved to Ireland in 2007 to pursue a teaching career, believing it would be a temporary visit, but after meeting her now-husband John, 47, in 2009, she has remained there ever since, becoming an “accidental entrepreneur”.

The couple decided to build a chocolate factory next to their home called Hazel Mountain Chocolate – Ireland’s only bean-to-bar chocolate factory and visitor centre, featuring a cosy cafe – which opened in 2014.

Often nicknamed The Chocolate Lady, Kasha said she eats chocolate every single day – but due to the proximity of the factory, she does not keep any in her home.

Kasha said she never dreamed the business would become so successful, with projected turnover figures for this year ranging from 2.7 to three million euros, and she described her journey as “surreal”.

She told PA Real Life: “You could say that (I’m the female Willy Wonka).

“I need to emphasise how different the chocolate that we work with is, but when you come along, everything is behind the glass – you see the flowing chocolate and the cocoa beans.

“People always ask, ‘Why are you here?’ But I feel that’s the magic of the place, that we’re in the middle of nowhere.

“It’s a little bit dreamy, it’s magical.”

Kasha explained that she was raised by a single mother in Poland and they were “very poor”, meaning food was “scarce”.

She said they never had chocolate at home or bought sweet treats, but they made everything from scratch – and this inspired her love for baking from a young age.

“We never bought sweets or cookies, we always made everything ourselves,” she explained.

“My grandfather had a bakery in Poland, and I just don’t remember ever buying anything from the shop.”

Kasha later attained her master’s degree in Poland and decided to move to Ireland in 2007 to “explore the culture, the language and the people”, believing it would be temporary.

However, while in Ireland, she met her husband, John, during a guided hike on New Year’s Eve in 2009 – and she has “never left”.

“One tour operator was offering this hike in the Burren… and John was the guide, so that’s how I met my husband,” she said.

“I came to Ireland just to experience the culture, the language, and I thought I’d be on my way again, but I never left.”

With John’s plans to transform his grandparents’ old cottage into a walking centre, from which he could guide visiting hikers, they decided to open the cottage as a cafe to the public.

Drawing on the skills handed down by her mother and grandfather, Kasha took over the cafe and started selling chocolates in small packages.

“What’s mad is that I came here as a teacher and accidentally went back to my roots of cooking and baking,” she said.

From selling chocolates, Kasha said she wanted to do something on a larger scale and thought: “Why don’t we just start making chocolate?”

After months of planning, Kasha and her husband then decided to use “a small amount of savings” to build a medium-sized chocolate factory next to the cottage – around 30m away – and renovate the cottage into their family home, which has since featured in the TV show Home Of The Year in Ireland.

Kasha and John officially opened Hazel Mountain Chocolate on Valentine’s Day in 2014, and Kasha said: “We’re the only chocolate factory and visitor centre in Ireland that’s producing chocolate directly from cocoa beans.”

Since launching, Kasha has worked with several well-known chefs, including John Torode, Nigella Lawson and Babatunde Abifarin, and the business has grown from strength to strength, with a team of 22 employees currently.

“When I go outside, I can smell the chocolate when they’re roasting the cocoa beans – it’s pretty cool,” she said.

“I’m so connected to the chocolate factory; I can walk to have my morning coffee there.

“I think we’re so proud to be processing cocoa beans on site because we really create such a pure chocolate.”

Working and trading directly with owners of cocoa plantations in places such as Venezuela, Cuba, Bolivia and Guatemala, the cocoa beans, which are fermented, are transported to the factory, where they are then roasted over several weeks.

The contents inside the roasted cocoa beans are then put into mills, along with sugar and Irish milk – there are no other ingredients – creating the “purest” chocolate, which is then sold as bars, truffles and more.

Kasha said their dark chocolate has “no bitterness” and the factory even has a “truffle room”, which is being upgraded into an interactive space.

“Only about 2% of all the chocolatiers and chocolate factories in the world do that process, making chocolate from scratch,” Kasha explained.

“It’s illuminating for people who say, ‘Wow, this is how chocolate is meant to taste’.”

Kasha said she loves educating visitors, with the factory welcoming around 200,000 people per year who have travelled from as far as Australia, New Zealand and South Africa.

She has published three cookbooks since the factory opened and launched a travel and food show on YouTube called Food For Stories.

Just a few months ago, she was honoured with the Food Hero Award at the Irish Restaurant Awards, which she said is often referred to as the “Food Oscars”.

Kasha said: “This was a great moment of recognition, especially coming from a childhood when food was scarce to now having built Ireland’s only bean-to-bar chocolate factory and visitor centre, it feels almost like a legacy.”

Speaking about her advice to others wanting to launch their own business, Kasha said people should “do what excites them” and embrace the fear, as she said: “Everything amazing is outside of your comfort zone.”

“It feels very surreal because none of it was planned,” she said.

“We literally built the whole business from the ground up. There were no wealthy parents behind us, there was nothing – just a small amount of savings and trying to make it work as a couple.

“You really don’t have to see the top of the mountain from the bottom, you just need to see the next step and trust that things will fall into place.”

To find out more, visit the factory website here: hazelmountainchocolate.com.

For more about Food For Stories on YouTube, visit: youtube.com/channel/UCCc2HpbOMckX1DcSYnJGzww.