The Nenagh Guardian
Fashion and Lifestyle Magazine
Autumn / Winter 2018
Cover and Article: The Woman Who Put the Icing on a Bakery Firm
Margaret Valette O’Connor welcomes the Nenagh Guardian into her beautifully decorated home and sits down with reporter Peter Gleeson to talk about her flourishing career, managing a demanding business while being a mum to four children and the key to her success.
They open the conversation with Margaret’s journey from being a corporate executive to, together with her then-husband, taking over Quigley’s, a 5th generation family business. “It was cobwebs and whitewashed walls”, she said, recalling the original state of the Kenyon Street bakery. They saw passed this and the rebirth of the brand had commenced.
From one small bakery in Nenagh, Quigley’s Café, Bakery, and Deli now has 18 cafes around Ireland manned by 190 staff, 40 of which are in the brand’s production facility in Nenagh.
She credits her business partnership with her ex-husband, adding that they made a great team. “We both were definitely tuned in to the business and worked great together with very high energy. We worked a 24/7 week and there were no such things as a social life for 15 years.” Ultimately, the key to their success was to serve the needs of people coming into the shop. “They always got what they wanted and things grew from there.”
Their desire to diversify and expand the business brought them to Limerick in a new form – Quigley’s café. This brought the bakery beyond wholesale and over the counter offerings to a full café experience alongside a bread and cake shop. This was the start of something big and how each succeeding branch was modelled.
Having branches located nationwide was a stark difference from managing one bakery and they maintained the same high-quality products consistently by having all ingredients and mixes come from one centralised location. “People are blown away when they see what goes on out there. The place is an absolute hive of activity – a kind of hidden gem.”, states Margaret.
The brand has been around for more than 100 years and its growth has gone from strength to strength. With Margaret’s leadership, they continued to adapt especially according to their clients’ evolving tastes. Though there are two things that they are adamant in upholding, one of which is continuing to support local suppliers, with most of their raw materials sourced from local manufacturers. The other, which arguably may be one of the key factors to their success, is preserving the personal touch that they had from the beginning; the element that gives them an edge over international commercial café chains.
Margaret’s work ethic traces back to her younger years when she helped out at her parents’ Bed & Breakfast. “I loved it. I didn’t look at it as work.”. Clearly, she brought that same diligence to her later, highly successful, career.
Amidst her busy life, she admits it took some time for her to see that’s it’s also vital to spend time looking after your own wellbeing. She found great support in the Women’s Network in North Tipperary and the Local Enterprise Office and found the networks she has built through them invaluable.
She now wants to share her story, experiences, and learnings with others who are on the same journey as she was. She has launched her own brand, geared towards her latest mission to coach like-minded entrepreneurs to guide them in achieving success in their lives and business.
“For business to work, you have to work on yourself”, she advises.