Place your vote for one of the final five companies in Bank of Ireland’s competition to become Leinster’s sponsor for a day.

The winner will be decided by a public vote. Have your say by voting at www.independent.ie/sponsorforaday
 
The five companies shortlisted for Leinster are: 

  • Big Red Cloud
  • Jobbio
  • Kilmore Quay
  • Nobó  
  • Radical Oats 

Big Red Cloud

Big Red Cloud is a leading supplier of easy-to-use online accounting for small businesses. Bookkeeping and preparing the accounts does not come easy to many business owners and they have taken it upon themselves to produce the necessary solution to help, nurture and grow entrepreneur’s confidence and knowledge so that they can master this necessary business tasks.

To help business owners they in turn established the Elevate programme; it is their version of the Leinster Academy: it provides the tools and resources necessary for small businesses to understand and master the various aspects of running a small business. It sets them up well and positions them nicely to step up to the next level.

Over 35,000 businesses have already made the move and are up and running with Big Red Cloud’s online accounts software.
 
Jobbio

Jobbio is an Irish technology business at the forefront of online and mobile recruitment. It is a simple recruiting platform for both talent and brands. Backed by Enterprise Ireland as a High Potential Start-up they are using technology to challenge the old world recruitment model of job boards, recruiters and applicant tracking systems. With over 450+ companies including Irish and international companies and 90,000 users already signed up to the platform they are fast becoming the new way to hire and be hired. 
 
Kilmore Quay

Based just a short distance from one of Ireland’s most celebrated fishing villages, Kilmore Quay Fine Foods is a family run business where quality truly counts. Mark O’Connor and John Kenny realised that there was a gap in the market for convenient quality-focused Irish seafood. They were tired of seeing large foreign brands dominating the shelves of the local supermarkets with products that were often defrosted and contained more bread crumbs than fish. From day one, they’ve been working directly with local fishermen to source the very best of Irish seafood. Their small-scale approach to production is genuinely sustainable and offers absolute traceability from tide to table. What’s more, unlike many larger businesses, they still hand fillet and hand prepare their seafood, for that added traditional touch.
 
Today, Kilmore Quay combines the knowledge and heritage of a distinguished family run brand, with the outstanding quality and reliability of local fresh seafood. With that in mind they developed their product range including, seafood sausages, haddock goujons, and smoked salmon. All their products are gluten free, low in fat and high in Omega 3. Their products are available in Dunnes Stores, Supervalu and Tesco stores throughout Ireland. 
 
Nobó

Nobó is a young Dublin based food company dedicated to creating the world’s finest dairy-free, healthy, and supremely delicious foods. It was founded by Brian and Rachel Nolan, in the summer of 2012. Their first product ‘Frozen Goodness’, an award winning dairy free alternative to ice cream, was launched into the Irish market 11 months ago and is now available across the country. It is the world’s first ice cream alternative made from avocado and coconut milk, and sweetened with pure honey. Their ice cream alternative is handmade in small batches in County Wicklow.  
 
Radical Oats

Radical Oats was founded in 2013 by Tony and Miriam Cox-Monahan. The company’s first product, Radical Oats, is a low GI healthy snack, which combines oats and probiotic yoghurt in a convenient, chilled format.  All ingredients are Irish and the product is made in Ireland. 
 
A very active husband and four teenagers prompted Miriam to develop a recipe using Irish oats and other natural Irish ingredients that would keep hunger at bay for a very long time. It is an entirely new concept in the way oats are currently consumed. Using all Irish ingredients, Radical Oats provides slow release energy in a convenient format. In October 2012 Radical Oats won the title ‘Best New Food Producer’ and earlier this year Eamonn Quinn took a 20% equity stake in the company following an appearance on Dragons’ Den by Miriam and daughter Tabitha.The exposure led to significant interest from retailers and Radical Oats is now listed nationwide with Tesco, Super Valu, Dunnes Stores, Centra, Spar, Applegreen and Independent retailers. It is also listed with Pallas Foods for the food service industry.