Shanagolden to shut in dairy cost-cutting drive
Now part of the Kerry Group’s worldwide business empire, Shanagolden Creamery is to close its doors later this year.
As part of a stores rationalisation going on over the past five years, Kerry Agri has taken the closure decision, just weeks after they opened a flagship modern store at Rathmore.
Kerry Agri’s modern store network is being built against a background of 80% direct supply onto farms of fertiliser and provisions, and a general downturn in Irish milk processing.
A new, modern store at Askeaton, and established stores in Newcastlewest and Glin will cater for Shanagolden’s customers.
Staff members will be transferred to Glin and Askeaton.
The creamery, just a few miles from the Shannon estuary in west Limerick, took in milk from 365 suppliers in its heyday in the 1970s. After it was burned by the Black and Tans in 1919, it was re-built by the local farmers in 1922.
Elsewhere in the unsettled dairy industry, a 13c fall in the Glanbia plc share price last weekend was the financial markets’ reaction to the Fresh Milk Producers farmers’ group proposal to take Glanbia plc private by converting it into a farmer owned co-op.
Securing sufficient shareholder support has been made difficult by the plc board’s rejection of the proposal, on grounds that it would not be in the best interests of all shareholders. But FMP Chairman Eamon Bray said 300m in buyout funding has already been secured.
He also announced countrywide meetings to allow for full debate among Glanbia’s co-op farmer members, co-op council and Board members. Meetings continue at 8 pm next Tuesday in Carlow (Seven Oaks) and Navan (Newgrange Hotel) on Wednesday, July 30.
