Self Made with Christine McAndrew

1. Tell me a bit about yourself and your self-made company.

I’m from Glencastle a small village outside Belmullet in Co. Mayo. I have worked in catering for many years providing healthy food to local schools. During this time I noticed that healthy drinks were very difficult to source, with little choices on the menu other than water. I have always been passionate about the importance of health and I felt like I needed a new challenge.

2. What made you take the bold step of setting up Mariko?

I came up with the project following a trip to America, where I noticed the increasing popularity of iced teas and green tea in particular. I started to research the composition and health benefits of green tea and I found that it contains high levels of the powerful antioxidant EGCG, known for its metabolism boosting properties. After discovering this, coupled with the detrimental effects that sugary soft drinks has on our health, I began to take my research further with some formulating and laboratory testing, resulting in our brewed green tea range called Mariko

3.Tell readers your typical day in the office?

I work from home, typically from 9 – 5. My day is a mixture of communicating with our distributor, sending out online orders, formulating our next flavour and arranging our next production.

4. Can you tell readers a bit more about your products and the process behind making them?

Mariko is brewed in the west of Ireland from the finest Japanese sencha green tea leaves. We have recently added two new infusions to our range following on from the success of our Original blend. The Mixed Berry and Lemon & Lime infusions are blended with green tea leaves, whole fruit and other botanicals. They are available in 750ml bottles and 250ml cans to cater for all customer lifestyles. All our teas are 100% natural with no sugars, no sweeteners and no calories. What makes Mariko unique is the proven high level of EGCG and we also lightly carbonate all our teas to give them that extra sparkle.

5. What have been your highlights to date?

Seeing Mariko on the supermarket shelves and getting noticed by nutritionists and other health professionals in the nutritional field are always pinch me moments. Being nominated for business awards and Quality Food Awards are always a bonus, but best of all is the feedback from happy customers who recognise the quality of our product.

6. How important is a support network when self-employed?

Having support from family is vital when starting a new business. It cannot be done without their encouragement and opinions on new ideas. Getting people’s different perspectives is essential as everyone is a potential customer.

7. What are the pros and cons of being self-employed?

You get great satisfaction from achieving success, however, you have to be self-motivated to keep yourself focused on the next challenge ahead. Sometimes when things go wrong and you are challenged, that’s when you need the determination to succeed.

8. Do you have any words of wisdom for those wanting to start their own company?

I suppose the most important thing to remember is you need to know your product, identify your target market and then take courage and just go for it………

9. What are your future plans?

We already have some export to elite sports clients.

Export distribution is certainly on the cards which we have started to explore with our sports clients. We are also looking towards developing our next new flavour to add to the Mariko family.

10. Lastly, do you have a life motto?

Nothing ventured, nothing gained

Available in SuperValu’s nationwide or shop online at www.mariko.ie