One of Northern Ireland’s most innovative food businesses doubled its December sales and is looking to 2012 with significant confidence.
Finnebrogue - an artisan venison and pork company based outside Downpatrick - launched a new range of 2012 Christmas lines for Marks & Spencer, supported by Ulster Bank, and met with considerable success as a result, employing 50 additional people and growing sales in December to £2.5million.
In the past three years alone, Finnebrogue, which has worked closely with Ulster Bank since 2001, has quadrupled staff numbers and has grown turnover from £4m to £18m. Further expansion is also expected, with plans to grow the business to £31m by 2014.
Ulster Bank corporate manager Damien Long says that Finnebrogue is one of Northern Ireland’s outstanding food sector success stories.
“Finnebrogue is highly respected by the major food retailers for the high quality of its venison and pork and for continuing to introduce new products and to further improve existing lines. The company has been able to continually increase its business with the likes of Marks & Spencer, Tesco and Waitrose as a result,” Mr Long points out.
“We are very pleased to continue to provide banking solutions to help Finnebrogue develop and grow, achieving sales outside of Northern Ireland and creating employment locally,” he adds.
Ulster Bank provided finance to support the introduction and success of Finnebrogue’s Marks & Spencer Christmas orders as part of the bank’s ongoing lending and support for the business.
Finnebrogue managing director, Denis Lynn, says: “We’re delighted with sales over the Christmas period and are confident about the year ahead and beyond. For example, we will be launching a range of new sausage products for Tesco, new burgers for Marks & Spencer and a number of new products for Marks & Spencer’s Gloucester Old Spot Heritage range. We are very pleased with the support provided by Ulster Bank, which has helped place us in a very strong position in the marketplace.”
About Finnebrogue Established in 1986, the artisan venison and pork company has gone from strength-to-strength. The company farms their own venison on the historical Finnebrogue estate outside Downpatrick, they have a state of the art abattoir on site, and employ a skilled team of butchers to ensure high quality from farm to fork.
The facility was completed in early 2001, and is the only dedicated deer slaughtering facility on the island of Ireland. The venison business developed well over the last decade, and has often drawn the attention of celebrity chefs and food journalists to the business.
Following on from success in the venison market, the company diversified into pork sausages, developing a methodology which combined succulence and definition in a sausage, to a level which is still unmet by competitors. After supplying pork sausages to Marks & Spencer for three years, the company secured all of Marks & Spencer’s top tier sausage business. During Christmas 2010 the company manufactured Marks & Spencer Christmas product lines for the first time. Christmas 2011 saw sales for M&S Christmas lines quadruple. Staff numbers at Finnebrogue have quadrupled over the last three years, which is good news for the local economy as a whole.
The company launched the “Jimmy Doherty” sausage brand, and secured the rights to the Paul Rankin sausage portfolio, in April 2009. These products are sold to Waitrose and Tesco, with a combined turnover of £3m. The company also launched their own brand, “Good Little Company” in 2009, with a number of initial product lines. These are one of the fastest selling new brands in Waitrose, with turnover of £1.5m per annum. The brand has captured the heart of many consumers concerned with their health and that of their children.
The company’s entire focus is on sustainable, value added products, all manufactured in house. The growth in recent years has had a multiplier effect on other local food supply chain, from farm to processor, as all of the products use UK or Irish sourced materials; more good news for the local economy.