FROM knives, forks and spoons to earrings, brooches and necklaces. A Co Kildare company has branched out from the world of cutlery manufacturing to jewellery making.

Newbridge Cutlery, one of the town's main employers, has been making high quality cutlery, mainly for the giftware market, for over 60 years now, and although cutlery is still the backbone of the business, the company stumbled on the new departure of jewellerymaking quite by accident.

According to managing director Mr William Doyle, the company was looking for a way to add value to the metal left over after the cutlery was cut from the metal sheets, when they came across the jewellery idea by chance.

"When we make the cutlery from sheets of metal, we have residual material left over. Without melting down all the metal we found that we could simply heat it so as to make it pliable. From there we made napkin rings to begin with and the jewellery followed," he said.

After approaching the Trade Board for advice in the design of a new product, the company were given the go ahead and employed a design graduate, Ms Emma Tunney, to design a simple range of jewellery for the domestic market.

Although the company came up with the idea of making jewellery three years ago, Mr Doyle says it is only within the last six months that they have begun to market the jewellery on the strength of the company's brand name.

"Demand for the jewellery, which costs around £20 per piece, has outstripped supply in the marketplace and as a result we have developed a marketing plan to introduce a new pattern each year," Mr Doyle said.

"The success of the jewellery has taken us totally by surprise and although the cutlery is still the main business here, the jewellery is something we'd like to work on," he said.

"In terms of markets, although the home market is by far our biggest, we are in the early stages of negotiations with a Japanese firm which is keen to import Newbridge tableware," said Mr Doyle.