Our Mission
We have met so many parents who wished there was an easy to use service supplying the 3 school essentials of Books, Uniforms and Healthy Snacks & Drinks, that we decided to do something about it. Please browse through these pages and if you wish to find out more then please visit our Books, Uniforms or Healthy Snacks & Drinks pages or go to Contact us.
The video below gives a tour of our premises where we produce healthy school lunches for children in the DEIS lunch programme.
Our History
Carambola was founded in 2003 by Colm O’Brien and his wife, Aideen.
They left successful careers in Dublin in 1998 for opportunity in Limerick and purchased the Bewley’s Cafe Franchise for Limerick City, operating out of 7,000 square feet of prime retail space on Cruises St, a pedestrian shopping street in the heart of the city
In 2001, the region was devastated by the outbreak of ‘Foot and Mouth’ disease which all but turned off the tourist tap with the effect of the local economy flatenning. 9/11 dealt a further blow, ensuring that the American tourist would be slow to travel again through 2002. All of this coupled with a rent review in 2002 (towards the peak of the, now infamous, Celtic Tiger) meant that the Bewley’s large cafe model was outdated. The writing was on the wall. Our cafe business would not survive.
Anxious to look for opportunity, they rebranded Bewley’s to ‘Cruises Cafe’ and set about looking to expand that brand of coffee shop, including launching Cruises Cafe Kiosks on the Liffey Boardwalk in Dublin in April 2003. It was on one trip to Dublin around that time that I met ‘the man on the train’ who would be the catalyst to change our lives!
The man on the train was on business too. We exchanged business cards; he was with Paul Partnership, an organization in Limerick working in Community Services and against Social Exclusion… my card had a strapline: ‘What can I do for you?’ He asked what did that mean and I said that it would mean something to him and something entirely different to someone else, for example, if in six months time he needed a ladder, perhaps he might call me and I can help him out, or if not, put him in touch with somebody else who can. Simple concept.
As it happens, six months later I heard from his boss; the man on the train had left the organization. His boss, Tim Meagher, told me he had my card and asked was I interested in tendering for a ‘healthy school lunch pilot project’? I was thrilled! Perhaps this would allow us trade our way out of the cafe difficulties, so I said yes!
We won the tender! We started supplying 27 kids in Corpus Christi National School in Moyross, an underprivileged area of North Limerick.
Today, we are supplying up to 20,000 lunches to children in schools across the Republic of Ireland. We are also expanding into the School Books, Uniforms and Healthy Lunch Products markets, creating a one stop shop for your school needs.