A CO Fermanagh company behind one of the biggest egg processing operations across the UK and Ireland has recorded a 69 per cent surge in revenues over the past two years, new accounts show.
Ready Egg Products, which files its accounts as Lough Erne Investments, posted a turnover of £73 million for the year to December 25 2018.
The rapid growth has helped the company’s workforce grow by 51 per cent since 2016.
The family-owned business produces and processes a range of cooked egg products, including pasteurised liquid eggs, scrambled eggs and hard boiled eggs.
Most of its products end up in the food manufacturing industry in Britain, where its clients include McDonalds and M&S.
Lough Erne Investments is headed by Charles Crawford, who last year featured in an RTE documentary charting the stories of Ireland’s emerging business moguls.
His egg enterprises date back to 1978, when he set up Erne Eggs. Within five years he had developed the business into the north’s largest egg packer and producer. The business later evolved into Ferne Foods, which manufactured cooked egg products. The Fermanagh businessman eventually sold the company to Moy Park.
In 2007, he set up Ready Egg Products, a joint venture between Erne Eggs, Irish Eg Products and Greenfield Foods.
Now processing in excess of four million eggs each day from his plant at Manor Waterhouse Farm outside Lisnaskea, the revenues and profits of Mr Crawford’s company have soared in the past 24 months.
In 2016, Lough Erne Investments recorded a turnover of £43.1m, with pre-tax profits of £6.8m.
At the end of last year, turnover had climbed past £73m, producing pre-tax profit of £8m.
Ready Egg Products also runs an operation in Chesterfield. Opened in 2015 as a second liquid egg processing facility, the Fermanagh firm said it has helped it ensure a continuity of supply in Britain.
The company’s workforce has also been on the climb over the past two years. From a staff of 113 in 2016, the number of employees within the firm stood at 171 at the end of last year.
Some 22 people were recruited to the manufacturing side of the business in 2018.
It brought the firm’s overall staff costs to £4.4m for 2018.
The company has not provided a geographical breakdown of where its revenue stems from, but it’s thought that the bulk of it is sold within the UK.
Ready Egg Products’ growth has also been backed by government grant aid. Last year the grant contribution was £443,853, bringing it to just over £1m in the past two years.
