Former BBC Apprentice star gets her innovation to market

The phrases "ultra-low calorie" and "super low carb" make food sound virtuous rather than tasty but Roisin Hogan, founder of food start-up Hiro, says her products are both.

What’s different about Hiro is that its products are made from a low calorie, low carbohydrate vegetable flour produced from the Japanese vegetable, Konjac. The flour is made into pasta and noodles and teamed up with prawns, chicken and vegetables to produce fat-free, low sugar, high protein fresh and chilled meals. A typical Hiro meal will have around 250 calories.

Roisin Hogan is an accountant by profession who worked with Ernst & Young until 2014. The idea for Hiro had begun simmering away a few years previously when she gave up smoking. “Giving up smoking changed my life and turned it into a healthy food adventure,” she says. “Often when you stop smoking you can pile on the pounds by replacing cigarettes with snacks. Not wanting to do this made me become really aware of health and nutrition.

“I tried low carbohydrate diets like Paleo and Atkins but the difficulty with these diets is that you need loads of imagination and time and you also crave carbohydrates. I was working long hours and didn’t have time for culinary extravaganzas,” she says. “Then my sister told me about an article she had read about ‘zero calorie’ noodles and I started to investigate. They turned out to be made from konjac flour and I tried them and quickly realised how great they were.”

Lifestyle product

Hogan is at pains to point out that Hiro is not a diet product.

“We’re a lifestyle and our aim is to give people a healthy, tasty and convenient meal option without the calories or carbs,” she says. “Our products are filling and nutritious and we are using an innovative cold pressing manufacturing technique that preserves the products in a natural way.”

In 2014 Hogan decided to quit her job with Ernst & Young to go full-time into developing Hiro. A TV ad for would-be candidates for BBC reality series, The Apprentice, caught her attention. She applied and following a rigorous selection process was offered a place on the show.

“My family and friends were quite worried about my taking part not least because it’s a quick way to destroy your reputation. But I saw it as a strategic move and a way of promoting my business. Making it to the semi-final really helped me get my product noticed,” she says. “It was an incredibly tough process and very risky but I came through the other side with a great platform to talk to people about my product and I also knew exactly where the holes in my idea were and how to plug them.”

Hogan estimates the initial start-up costs of her business at around €20,000 which came mainly from personal resources and family support. She received first stage feasibility study funding from the Dublin City Enterprise Board and is currently participating in the Foodworks programme, which is a joint initiative between Teagasc, Enterprise Ireland and Bord Bia (www.foodworksireland.ie).

Recognising that the fastest way to market was through partnering with an already well-established food producer, Hogan has linked up with Drogheda-based Nature's Best whose focus is also on healthy fresh products such as salads and vegetables. The speciality flour for the noodles is being imported from Japan and there will be four products in the initial line-up.

The Hiro range will be launched this month in SuperValu stores and Hogan's aim is to grow the business into an international brand. "I would love to be on shelves in the UK next year and mainland Europe shortly after and because we are a completely new category there is already a lot of interest," she says.

“Over the next two years we expect to add up to 15 jobs at Nature’s Best and to have around 10 people employed in Hiro itself.”

– OLIVE KEOGH