Camel racing aids firm’s expansion

Cork-owned Mervue Laboratories is investing €2m into new manufacturing facilities and plans to increase its staff count by 25 to 75 people in Watergrasshill in the next three years as part of a huge expansion of its animal nutrition business.

The company, with bases in Bulgaria and Lithuania, also plans to open a manufacturing facility in the Netherlands and open a sales office in the US next year.

Mervue has had particular success in the Middle East and the Gulf where it sells its own nutrition products for the huge camel-racing industry there. “We make the equivalent of electrolytes and probiotics nutrition products, but only they’re for camels,” said William Twomey, commercial director at Mervue.

“We got the idea when we were out there selling nutrition products for horses when we were asked why we were concentrating on the 4,000 horses when there was 140,000 racing camels. Camel racing is the equivalent of our Liam McCarthy Cup.”

Mr Twomey said he and co-founder Martin Beirne were proud of developing through research and development an Irish animal nutrition brand that is now sold in more than 50 countries around the world.

Mervue now makes 200 products for ruminants, as well as for racing camels.