Speciality food company rescued and open for business once again

A FOOD company which collapsed last year has been rescued and is once again open for business.

Finance Minister Brian Cowen officially re-opened speciality food company, Rudd’s in Birr, County Offaly yesterday, creating 10 new jobs.

The firm was formerly owned by the Rudd family and was wound up in April last year after being on the verge of collapse for nearly two years. It had previously survived a three-month examinership period.

Birr Meat Processors, owned by Offaly businessman Pascal Campbell and his family, bought a 60% stake in the Rudd family meat business when it invested €600,000 two years ago to pay for the examinership. The Rudd family retained a 40% stake.

But reports said relations between the families reportedly soured and Birr Meat Processors and David Rudd and Family were wound up last year with debts of €700,000 and €328,000 respectively.

The Rudd’s cooked meats business has now been purchased by the owners of the Brady Family Ham company, which produces traditional Irish hams at its facility in Naas, County Kildare.

Managing director Bill O’Brien said: “The Rudd’s brand has been widely respected in the past for its uniqueness and customer appeal. The brand will now go forward to a new level within the speciality food sector, as a result of the synergies and scale that its partnership with the Brady Family Ham company will generate.”

It is planned to continue to operate the two companies, Rudd’s and Brady Family Ham as two separate entities.

The production, technical, marketing and product development expertise of the Brady Family team will be shared between the two companies. Distribution will also be shared.

Rudd’s will operate from an upgraded facility at Syngefield in Birr.

Minister Cowen said yesterday: “In the Ireland of today, we have many of the ingredients necessary for future innovative activity. We have a young well educated population, many of whom have experience of either working abroad or working with international companies here at home.

“The approach taken in my budgetary policy is grounded in my conviction that we must protect our competitiveness and that one way to achieve this is to avoid adding inflationary pressures which give rise to wage demands and set in train a vicious circle for the economy.”

He added that Shannon Development have reported the indigenous manufacturing base in South West Offaly has grown by over 20% since 1995 and that the number of people employed in indigenous manufacturing at 31 December last year was 786, an increase of 156 over December 2000.

The Minister said: “The fact that North Tipperary and South West Offaly are the only two areas in the Shannon Region to experience a net increase in employment in indigenous manufacturing in the four year period is a measure of how well this area is performing in that sector.”