Protest bid to stop Ornua’s new butter packing facility to Cork
The Co-Op, headquartered in Sligo and known as North Connaught Farmers, and then Connacht Gold until 2013, is the largest milk processor and co-op in the West of Ireland.
Defending their decision to transfer its Achonry butter packing operation to Ornua’s new facility in Mitchelstown, expected to take place next June, Aurivo chairman Tom Cunniffe, said the co-op’s board of management is completely committed to the project.
He said the new north Cork plant is the most efficient butter packing facility in Europe, a state-of-the-art, purpose-built, centre of excellence that presents Aurivo with significant opportunities for innovation and growth.
He said if Aurivo is to grow and support its 700-strong work base in the North West, if it’s to continue to pay its 1,000 dairy farmers, it must consistently look at ways of being more efficient and innovating its product range, and how it produces it. To do this, it must have modern, well invested facilities.
Like most of the leading dairy co-ops, Aurivo is a key shareholder in Ornua, formerly known as the Irish Dairy Board.
At recent public meetings in south Sligo, angry local people condemned the loss of the butter plant.
Achonry Working Group chair and local businessman Tony Hession said, “We’re giving it away after 119 years of people putting their souls into this. We’re giving away our heritage.”
Local Fianna Fáil TD Eamon Scanlon said, “These jobs are being taken from a rural area that badly needs them to sustain the area.”
The Aurivo announcement is seen locally as a second blow to the South Sligo economy, after the same company moved their head office and its 60 jobs from Tubbercurry to Sligo town.
The Achonry site is to continue as a national distribution hub for Aurivo Consumer Foods, while administration, and sales and marketing functions will remain in Aurivo’s head office in Finisklin, Sligo.
Butter production will continue in Aurivo’s dairy ingredients site in Ballaghaderreen, Co Roscommon, and it will be transported to Mitchelstown for packing under the Connacht Gold brand.
The company has promised that “options will be explored to ascertain if there is any opportunity to relocate employees to other Aurivo operations.”
