A Chat With Biasol Co-founders, Niamh and Ruairi Dooley, On Launching A Game-Changing Brand and Making A Real Impact In Foodservice

We sat down with Niamh and Ruairi Dooley, the dynamic siblings and co-founders of Biasol, who upcycle the leftover grain from Irish craft breweries to create a range of delicious malt tasting foods. Already making waves in retail, they are stocked in Holland & Barrett stores across the UK and Ireland. Now, they're gearing up to expand their B2B presence and make a significant mark in the foodservice arena.

What is the Biasol origin story?

(N) It started as a lockdown project. I lost my job due to Covid when Ruairi rang me up and asked if I wanted to work on a project together. We came up with the idea to develop a nutritious food product in a sustainable way. That led to the idea of upcycling and reusing what’s already out there. Craft beer had exploded in Ireland so we knew there was a lot of spent grain around. We dug a bit deeper and looking at the nutritionals; spent grain is really high in fibre and protein and the sugar has been removed to make the alcohol, so you’re left with all the good stuff. We sent samples to chefs and bakers and the feedback was fantastic and then one thing led to another…

So with chefs and bakers giving you a big thumbs up, what was your next move – jumping into foodservice or making your mark in retail?

(R) Retail first. We launched in retail, brought the Biasol brand to life and then once we had created awareness of our products, we started getting inbound requests from foodservice.

What gets you pumped about foodservice? What are the opportunities you want to seize in that area?

(N) What’s really exciting is we started with a brand but we’re all about making impact. How much grain can we save? How much grain can we get back onto people’s plates? By working with foodservice outlets, we can get more volume back into the food-chain. That’s what gets us excited.

(R) I think we can add a lot of value to the foodservice sector, with our strong points being breakfast, healthy snacks and bakery.

How do you adapt your product to cater to the foodservice industry?

(R) Mainly a larger packing format, we created 5kg bags of our grains for foodservice. Also we don’t focus on branding so it’s a lot more straightforward.

Got any tips for brands looking to move into foodservice?

(N) My advice would be to have patience because the sales cycles in foodservice can be much longer in terms of them reviewing your product, figuring out how it will work in their site, all the paperwork attached etc.

(R) Have your marketing materials ready before you meet with foodservice outlets because you can’t rely on your branding to sell your story so you need other marketing materials (ex. an A4 poster).

And finally, you’re coming to our Foodservice Summit on 19th March, what are you most excited about?

(R) For us, it’s about building brand awareness and we’re hoping to make connections with distributors who would like to take on our product.

(N) We’re looking forward to making new connections and talking to the right people in foodservice.