Food hub to create up to 2,000 local jobs
The food giant is to spend €100m on the Kerry Global Technology and Innovation Centre, which will be built at the Millennium Business Park in Naas and which will employ 800 people by 2015. The company says a further 100 positions will be created by the time the plant is fully commissioned in mid-2016.
Subject to planning, construction will start in early 2013.
According to Enterprise Ireland CEO Frank Ryan, the 900 jobs created by Kerry Group will actually mean upwards of 2,000 jobs for the local economy.
Research has shown that every job created by an Irish export company creates a further 1.2 jobs given the boost for indirect employment through the likes of supply companies.
Kerry Group said the facility will “serve as a key focal point for Kerry’s customer engagement activities, providing strategic customers with access to the group’s complete breadth and depth of technologies, scientific research, innovation and applications expertise across food, beverage and pharmaceutical markets.”
The group’s CEO, Stan McCarthy, said the development would bring significant career development opportunities. It is expected that half the jobs will be in the research and development division of the firm.
London and Amsterdam were also considered as locations for the facility.
Jobs Minister Richard Bruton said: “This is the largest single investment in food innovation ever by a company in Ireland, and puts Ireland firmly at the forefront of global food innovation.
“The fact that this is the work of an Irish company will help raise the ambitions of other Irish companies to become world leaders in their own fields.”
Agriculture Minister Simon Coveney said more than 500 top food scientists from leading global firms would visit the centre every year to develop products with Kerry Group.
“This investment is a statement of confidence in the Irish economy and in the quality of Irish food science graduates to deliver food innovation in the most modern facility of its type on the planet,” he said.
“The agri-food and food innovation sector will continue to provide positivity and optimism in the Irish economy.”
As well as the 900 full-time jobs being created in Naas, 400 temporary jobs will be created during the facility’s construction phase.
The announcement comes less than a week after Dairygold was granted planning permission for a €120m dairy processing facility in Mallow, Co Cork which will create up to 100 jobs directly and indirectly.
Kerry Group employs 24,000 people and has 150 manufacturing facilities in 25 countries. It has sales of €5bn and describes itself as a world leader in food ingredients and flavours serving the food, beverage, and pharmaceutical industries and a leading consumer foods processing and marketing organisation in selected EU markets.
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