TYRONE agri-food firm Skea Eggs, which supplies hundreds of millions of eggs a year to supermarket giants like Marks & Spencer and Sainsbury's, hatched up increased sales and profits in 2019.
Established in 1971 by Matthew Hayes and now one of the leading specialist egg producers in Ireland, sales at Skea rose from £68.4 million to just shy of £80 million over that calendar year.
And accounts filed with Companies House also show that bottom line profits soared by more than 40 per cent from £2.4m to £3.4m, and at year-end its assets exceeded liabilities by more than £17m.
The company - which significantly paid a dividend of £7.7 million compared to just £75,000 the year before - saw its staff numbers rise to 149, and its wages bill came in at £2,855,000.
In a report accompanying the accounts, the directors said: “The company will continue to seek new sales opportunities in the coming year, although the egg market and the retail environment is changing and the company expects sales revenues and margins to be subdued in the coming year.”
Based in Pomeroy, Skea Eggs works with more than 100 farmers across the north, and sells its products - including free range, organic and Omega 3 eggs - in virtually every Sainsbury's and M&S outlet in the UK.
The company says its vision is to produce a high quality, welfare friendly, commercially viable and fully traceable products, and it now has around 150 local units producing free range eggs from one million-plus free range birds, and 38 local units producing organic eggs from more than 100,000 birds.
