WEALTH June 7, 2026 0 Comments

How Two Sisters Turned a Simple Bean into a Multi-Million Dollar Goose-Chasing Empire—And You Won’t Believe Their Secret Strategy

Ever wonder what happens when a spark of sibling ambition meets a global craving for chocolate that’s both indulgent and ethical? Well, sisters Natalie and Karen Keane did more than wonder—they acted. Starting from a humble kitchen table with just €600 between them, these two visionaries whipped up Bean and Goose, a brand that doesn’t just satisfy sweet tooths but also champions sustainability and Irish charm. It’s no small feat turning a modest venture into one of Ireland’s favorite boutique chocolate brands, complete with hand-wrapped delights and a story as rich as the cocoa itself. But here’s the kicker: with all that success, are Natalie and Karen ready to call it quits, or is Bean and Goose just getting started? Let’s dive in and find out what’s next for these entrepreneurial chocolatiers who proved that passion and purpose can indeed pay off. LEARN MORE.

Sisters Natalie and Karen Keane had a vision to create a sustainable chocolate brand. Starting out on a kitchen table and with limited funds, the pair’s Bean and Goose range has since become a massive hit with treat lovers. So is it a case of “mission accomplished” or is there more to come from the siblings? Jordan Mooney finds out…

When it comes to the sweeter things in life, Wexford-based chocolate company Bean and Goose has perfected its approach.

From Irish-influenced flavours and hand-wrapped bars to uniquely shaped chocolates and handwritten notes in each box, founders Natalie and Karen Keane’s personalised touch has helped grow the business into one of Ireland’s most beloved small brands.

Founded in 2014 by the Keane sisters, Bean and Goose has gone through significant growth and transformation. While you might now be familiar with the brand’s iconic chocolate hare or sharing slabs, it initially began in a tiny home kitchen.

“Karen has a degree in software engineering and then worked as a teacher and in HR, while I had previously owned my own business. But neither of us had run a food business before. About 13 years ago, I wanted to go back into business to do something really creative. But I knew it would be really hard to create something extraordinary as just one person, so Karen and I decided to do it together,” Natalie Keane explains from the company’s Gorey HQ.

“We were brought up by real food-loving women and that kind of led us to the idea of a food business. We were inspired by our Irish grandmother, who made everything from scratch, and by our mum, who had such an appreciation for real food and honest, proper ingredients. We weren’t sure what our business would be, but then once we thought about chocolate we knew it would be right for us.”

Citing memories of chocolate being a very special food item throughout childhood, but something that had mostly become “really cheap, thoughtless and easy to buy”, Natalie’s research into the Irish chocolate industry showed her that the space hadn’t really adapted.

“Nobody was giving chocolate an Irish personality, plus ethics and sustainability hadn’t really come into the conversation yet. How we were consuming and enjoying chocolate hadn’t really changed,” Natalie says.

“Everything I learned was so interesting, and then I realised there might be a chance for us to do something really interesting.”

Once they decided that chocolate was the thing for them, Natalie and Karen realised quickly that they didn’t actually know enough about it to get going. Instead the sisters reached out to expert French chocolatier Benoit Lorge, based in Co. Kerry, who invited them to his Kenmare headquarters for a three-day crash course in the art of chocolate.

“Benoit was so brilliant [and] we got a real taste for it. But then we spent about a year in Karen’s house practising, making chocolate and figuring out our brand,” Natalie says.

“Our desire for a business did not supersede the planet, so we knew we wanted to do good and not add any more rubbish into the world. We knew from the beginning that we didn’t need more chocolate, we needed better chocolate; something that stands for something and means something.”

Throughout that year, the pair laid down exactly what their business would become — from the brand’s personality and flavours to its constraints and issues.

The name Bean and Goose came about during this time, straight from their surrounding area of Wexford.

“While we were thinking through the brand, we had big sheets of paper up on the walls in Karen’s kitchen — you can still see them there now. There were three and we filled them with flora, fauna, wildlife, birds, anything from the Wexford area,” Natalie says.

“There were great names there, one of which was the bean goose, a bird whose numbers were growing that year. [The experts] didn’t know why, but it was thriving in Wexford, which clicked with us. That’s how we became Bean and Goose — two names for the two of us and something that really represented our local area.”

Self-funded at this stage of infancy, Natalie and Karen had started the business with just €600 — €300 from each of them.

They used this to purchase the necessary equipment such as a marble board for chocolate tempering, bowls and scrapers, which they sourced through Benoit Lorge.

Natalie says they were lucky that they could just about afford not to pay themselves at this point — it wasn’t until four years later that they began to take a wage. Beginning with stalls at markets around Dublin, Bean and Goose soon began to sell at Lilliput Stores.

But it took three years of market sales for the pair to fully develop the brand into what it is today, which Keane credits in large part to the feedback she received from their regular market customers. At this stage their chocolate, with its distinctive design inspired by Irish seascapes and nature, was available in the likes of Avoca and Brown Thomas.

With such big clients on their books, it was time to move production from Karen’s kitchen.

“We literally couldn’t walk around Karen’s house with the amount of packaging around the place, so we moved into a 1,000 square foot premises in Enniscorthy at that point. It meant we could add more equipment and grow the team, but we started to outgrow the space very quickly,” Natalie explains.

“Chocolate brands exploded [during] Covid, so we saw rapid growth and our turnover tripled overnight. We ended up needing to move to our new, bigger space in 2022.”

Although they started the business with their own money, the Keane sisters have consistently returned profit back into it to aid growth, as well as availing of grants.

These include €50,000 from the Enterprise Competitive Start Fund investment scheme in 2018, €100,000 in 2019 from the Enterprise Ireland High Potential Start Up programme, €35,000 from the LEADER rural development programme in 2023, and €100,000 from private investment in 2019.

With these financial aids, Bean and Goose rapidly expanded, moving to a new 3,500 square foot space in Gorey four years ago.

The premises allows for a 360kg capacity melting tank and a tempering machine that can take about 60kg of chocolate at a time. As such, output has grown massively.

Daily you’ll find the team hand-pouring, setting and wrapping hundreds of bars of chocolate, while online orders — which account for 40 per cent of the business — are hand-packed to be delivered all over the world.

Wholesale and hospitality has been another successful arm of the company, which Natalie says Bean and Goose expanded into two years ago.

They now supply hotels and cafés around the country with their products, but it’s hot chocolate that has become a surprise hit for Bean and Goose.

“Karen loves hot chocolate, so that’s really the reason we started doing it. She would notice that so many places were serving really poor hot chocolate, so we decided we had to sort that out. We did a lot of work and research around it. Essentially our [drink] is made from our chocolate, but grated into flakes,” Natalie explains.

“As we infuse our chocolate with flavours, that comes into our hot chocolate too, so you’ll see things like chamomile and malt on offer. It was popular immediately and last year we sold 3.6 tonnes of it.”

Looking ahead, Natalie explains that Bean and Goose is now focused on further growth.

Natalie Keane

This will include streamlining some of their processes, expanding their hot chocolate offering, continuing to develop their unique flavour offerings and, perhaps most excitingly of all, opening a small storefront at the factory.

“We want to show people the story of our chocolate and how it’s made, the true integrity of our product. I think this is a great way to do it. People can come and get a little cup of hot chocolate, but we’re also opening the space for collaborators to come in and learn from us or experiment,” Natalie says.

“We’ve created relationships and job opportunities with Bean and Goose. As we keep growing, we can now show people who we truly are and what we stand for.”