Distiller plans €100m project

BOOMING exports of Jameson whiskey have prompted Irish Distillers to announce a €100 million investment in its production facilities in east Cork.

Exports are rapidly increasing in the US, South Africa, Eastern Europe and Russia, and the distillery needs to expand its holding capacity to keep pace.

Tommy Keane, head of Irish Distillers distilling operations, said the company would build 40 maturation houses, capable of holding a total of 640,000 casks of whiskey.

They will be built a few miles south of the village of Castlelyons on 85 acres of woodland recently purchased from Coillte.

The company envisaged that the maturation houses could be at capacity within 10 years, Mr Keane said.

When Pernod-Ricard, the French-owned multinational, took over Irish Distillers’ Midleton plant in 1989, the company was selling 450,000 cases of Jameson each year. Last year production passed the three million case mark.

Mr Keane said the expectation is that production will rise to between seven and 10 million cases per annum in the coming years. He said that the Midleton plant hadn’t the space to cope with the huge stock of spirits and that was why the company had to find a new site for storing the whiskey, which takes between three and five years to mature.

The Midleton distillery, which was founded in 1825, employs just over 100 people and it is expected that the €100m investment will lead to further job creation “on an incremental basis”.

“Pernod-Ricard have been fantastic for us as they’ve brought us a worldwide market.

“The sales of Jameson have been growing at a phenomenal rate, especially in the United States, where 30% of our sales go,” Mr Keane said.

He said Irish Distillers contributed around €40m in wages and contracts to the local economy every year and the business was growing at 16% annually.

“We purchase malt and barley (for whiskey production) from local farmers. Around 11,000 acres locally is used for their production. As we grow, that will grow too.”

Cork County Council has granted the company planning permission for the project.

Mr Keane said the facility would be built within the wood and screened by trees to make it environmentally friendly. He said the company had been engaged in very positive talks with the local community to ensure construction and ongoing use of the site was run smoothly.