Inspiration
When we were in the Small Business Award Finals, we wrote a little essay about what the Happy Pear is about.
The Twins - You can’t promote a lifestyle unless you live it yourself, and the owners, David and Stephen Flynn, definately live the lifestyle that we are selling. The have a wide knowledge on cooking, nutrition, health, and growing vegetables. They are 30 years old, keep bee hives, have a veggie patch, practice lots of Yoga and swim in the Irish sea all year round (believe it or not). For those who play Golf, Dave has a handicap of 4 and Steve of 6. Dave fancied himself as a golf pro for a while, but then realised he didnt like golf. They have twin degrees in business and Stephen also has an MBS. Both are hugely idealistic in nature. When the shop first started, they weren’t very pushy with the staff. The idea was that the staff should be given total freedom to add their own contribution to the shop. Obviously, they quickly learnt that this in theory is lovely but the real world forced a few little changes. That said, the staff all feel part of a family and they bring a wonderful soul to the shop, bringing it to life. Our personal practice with the business is to take very little money out of the business. Meaning that we constantly reinvest any profits or money earned to fuel our organic growth and desire to continuously improve.
More than simply a food shop – The Happy Pear has become a place where people with health problems and diet related difficulties often come to us seeking our advice. Not only can customers come and buy healthy food, (most of the ingredients that we use in the shop are organic and local), but they can ask for our personal advice on what might be good for an ailment, or cooking tips. Most of the staff have a great knowledge of food, nutrition, juicing, cooking and the healing power of food and are happy to share!
We are regularly asked to give talks on health to old and young, to come visit schools to promote healthy eating, to give juicing and Smoothie making demonstrations. The twins have also been asked to present a television series called “Living on less”. It is to be a program based on the idea of healthy eating, healthy living and living in harmony with nature.
Integrity and ethics – Painted on one of our toilet walls is the quote from Gandhi: “Be the change you want to see in the world”. This quote helps sum up what we are trying to accomplish. We believe that much of current society is overly materialistic, money driven, very disconnected with Nature and people, and often it is quite superficial. Values such as health, community, family and farming are neglected in order to be able to buy that expensive new car, the big house, the package holidays. Sometimes it can seem like the package lifestyle. People living in the first world are staddled with invisible stressors and constant pressures. Human’s aren’t designed to live like that.
The Happy Pear is a business that is attempting to become the change we want to see in the world. We want to promote the importance of community, of family, of health and the necessity of respecting nature. We would love to live in a world where more people enjoy their work, are free be creative in it and to realise their own unique skills. We treat our suppliers and customers the way we like to be treated. We’re all in this together after all.
When making a decision we try to consider the whole spectrum of people and things affected and not simply the bottom line. In saying this we do realise the importance of the bottom line and that we must be financially responsible. We pay suppliers promptly as we ourselves like to be paid, we pay the bank back our debts and we pay staff a respectable “living wage” for the effort put in. Our aim is not to only make a profit for us but to make a profit for all involved. We feel that business is a series of relationships and that it should be fun and be enjoyed. Often it is hard work but that doesn’t mean that you can’t enjoy it!
Work Culture- At The Happy Pear we create a work environment that is vibrant and accepting. The atmosphere in the shop is one that buzzes with movement, plenty of banter and a good variety of music. The place has “SOUL” to put in a nut shell. It is very evident to see that staff enjoy their work from the laughter, chat, good music and general lively atmosphere that prevails in the shop. Also by the fact the many staff come to eat here on their days off too. It is definately a special place.
Staff have their roles and responsibilities but also there is space for them to express their own interests and creativity and individuality. Gwen who works in the café painted the lovely quotes and pictures on the walls; Donny who works in the juice bar designed this website; Gentle Mark is a homeopath and is always giving advice to people about how to fend something off.
We feel that it is the people who work at The Happy Pear that make it what it is. As a result we have started a Training Development Program where we pay for staff who have worked with us full time for more than a year to go study a course of their choice that is relevant to the business. To date Sally is doing a 2 year nutrition course; John is studying a chef course; Orna will study a handmade chocolate course in Germany.
Branding – over a short space of time (three years) we have created a very strong and distinguished brand. Our brand is mostly recognised within the Wicklow/ South Dublin area but also people have been spotted with Happy Pear stickers in places as far off as Galway, Kenya, Australia. We have a Mobile Juice and Smoothie Bar which we take to many different music festivals such as Oxegen, Electric Picnic and many many more. Friends at these festivals often end up going around with our lovely little orange stickers and sticking them on others!
The name came about because The Happy Pear was founded by smiling identical twins, a “happy pair”. Like the pear in our logo we were once one egg which split into two. The colour orange was chosen due to its vibrancy and loudness. We have always felt we have something important to share.
If we were to pick a list of adjectives that we wish to describe the shop, we’d probably go with fun, creative, lively, healthy, warm, alternative, and vibrant. This year we intend to expand on this. We want to be perceived as a clean, professiona andl well run business without jeopardising what we stand for.
Expansion plans for 2008 – Over the next couple of months we will acquire the lease of a premises behind ours. This will increase our floor space by 35%. We will expand our prepared foods operation, our kitchen and our seating area. Our plan is start a “Food-to-Go room” selling, a variety of gourmet sandwiches, hand made Happy Pear chocolate truffles and cakes to go alongside Juices, Smoothies and take away organic fair trade coffee.
We plan on investing in a bio-digester. This is a machine that speeds up the breaking down of food waste into compost. IInstead of it taking 6 months, a biodigester makes compost in less than 6 weeks. Currently we have to pay to have our food waste taken away to be composted. By doing this we are creating an on-site closed loop system. We will start to turn one of our waste streams (food waste) into a resource which we can either sell or give to local farmers for free.
Another goal of ours this year is to have a full audit of our carbon footprint. We shall soon begin to make the necessary steps to become a carbon neutral company.
Medium to Long term plans for The Happy Pear – Our intention is to fine tune our current operation. We want to expand on our existing site. We want to put down greater roots so that we can start to bear lots of fruit for ourselves and for the community.
We want to get more involved in local education programmes regarding healthy eating and living. Possibly working to having some sort of education facility where people can come to learn broadly about health.
Once we feel we have a solid base from which to go forward from, we will start looking for other locations for new Happy Pears. We don’t intend to expand using a franchise model but more of a cloning model. It is the culture that is the real soul of The Happy Pear; this would be lost in franchising. We want to expand while keeping our precious culture, soul and beliefs.
Why do we do it like this?
We run The Happy Pear like this to demonstrate that soulful and meaningful ways of doing business are not impossible. The notion of being a tyrant at work and going home and suddenly being a lovely person doesn’t fit with this model. It is simply based on everyone winning. We would love to show other business’ that it isnt always neccessary to be hardnosed and cut-throat and that any business can be profitable, socially innovative and conscious at the same time.
