"Since day one, we've grown and made money every single year"
Brian O Sullivan, CEO of Zeus Packaging, which manufactures and supplies over 9,000 different stock items to industries ranging from grocery and hospitality to food processing, pharma and agriculture.
DELOITTE LEADERSHIP SERIES: BRIAN O'SULLIVAN, FOUNDER, ZEUS PACKAGING
The commercial slogan of Zeus Packaging — “We make. We supply. We deliver.” — seems entirely appropriate for a company whose trajectory has maintained a steady upward thrust for almost the past 25 years.
Established in 1998, and now the largest Irish-owned packaging company, it employs over 700 people across 26 countries. Maintaining a constant organic growth, the company achieved a turnover of €210m in 2020, with its most recent the acquisition of Austrian-based food packaging business Petruzalek — further expanding its geographic reach into a dozen European countries.
The deal was the seventh business to be embedded in the group over the past two years, making Zeus one of the largest privately owned independent packaging companies in Europe.
“We are on target for a turnover of €300m in 2021, and our five-year plan is to hit half a billion, which is significant for an Irish company that has been built in one generation,” explains founder and owner Brian O’Sullivan.
“Since day one in 1998, we have consistently grown every year — apart from the crash in 2008 — and made money every single year. Regardless of the challenges and difficult times we have encountered over the years, making profits has always been top of the Zeus agenda — and it is why we are in this position today.”
Preferring to be known as a “hard worker with common sense” rather than entrepreneur, the Cork-born O’Sullivan remains the 100% owner of Zeus: “Certainly there have been many offers of equity over the years, we’ve been flooded with offers in fact, and while I would never say never, we have reached this point without the need for outside investment.”
Working hard to be the most efficient at what you do is an abiding mantra — “It’s about making more margin or at least competing with lower margins, which is our case.”
Zeus manufactures and supplies over 9,000 different stock items to industries ranging from grocery and hospitality to food processing, pharma and agriculture.
The company’s industrial division sells pallet wrapping and cardboard boxes, while its hygiene business sells cleaning supplies to factories, offices, supermarkets, manufacturers, restaurants and hotels. Its product range also includes takeaway packaging, coffee cups, stirrers, lids and supermarket bags.
Growing up in Britway, adjacent to Fermoy, where his father worked with Dairygold Co-Op, O’Sullivan demonstrated his commercial focus and business drive from an early age.
Throughout his primary and secondary school years, he worked a variety of jobs — milking cows, drawing silage and picking stones from fields for a pound a day.
“I would have loved to have been a farmer — but it was not to be. Seeing what I couldn’t have back then was part of what would drive me later.”
Passing up the opportunity to work as a farming contractor for £140 a week after his Leaving Cert — “huge money at the time” — he opted instead for Thomond College and a degree in engineering technology. The ingrained work ethic once again flourished as he juggled three jobs while doing his Master’s degree- selling mobile phones, part-time lecturing and weekend jobs as an electrician.
“Goals are important, but they shouldn’t be easy ones. The best way to celebrate achieving a difficult goal is to set another one within the hour.”
His initial break into business came during his teaching days while working part-time selling agricultural crop packaging.
This in turn led to O’Sullivan giving up the classroom to start his own business selling pallet wrapping in 1998.
“I flew to Holland on New Year’s day to make the deal, spending more money than I had on a flight / transport – for the possibility of a business I didn’t really know anything about,” he recalled on that pivotal career move. “But I was sure of one thing - I knew I could sell.”
That one product has now morphed into over 9000, supplying all the majors including Aldi, Lidl, Tesco, Dunnes, Musgraves, in addition to an ever-expanding roster of industries.
“I was really ignorant of the world outside of Fermoy and Thomond College in 1998 — but I knew I didn’t want to be small. And right from the start, we developed industrial, food service and retail packaging.”
By 2002, Zeus was achieving an annual revenue of €4m, mainly through industrial packaging for the computer sector. Then came the introduction of tax on plastic shopping and O’Sullivan’s first major acquisition of an Irish supplier of carrier bags to the supermarket sector.
The following years saw a string of similar purchases, pushing the annual turnover to €70m. An unstoppable momentum was driving Zeus to greater heights — and then came 2008 and the crash.
“The crash was there to be seen if you were looking in 2006 and ’07, but nobody was interested in looking for it. We were swimming out of our depth - big-time”.
With a decade of successful trading behind him and a drive toward a €100m in his sights, O’Sullivan encountered his biggest business challenge. “I had a huge turnover compared to my competitors, but we were rolling the dice owing the banks €54m — and we got hammered when the music stopped.”
While Ireland Inc entered a downward spiral that lasted years, Zeus determinedly clung to a survival trading strategy against the odds — “the bank would have taken the business from me if they could have run it any better.”
Trading his way slowly out of trouble, O’Sullivan honoured his borrowing commitments as Zeus looked to capitalise on new commercial horizons beyond the crash.
“One of my biggest lessons from that period was understanding that ‘the customer really is king’ and not just a business cliché. I might not have slept for three years, but I knew that I could hold on to my customers”.
With Zeus on track to celebrate its 25th anniversary shortly, and continuing its expansion through acquisition and the constant search for new markets, the grim reality of pandemic economics has done little to impede its onward progress.
“I talk to my manager in China every morning and could see what was coming early in 2020,” O’Sullivan recalled of his second biggest challenge. “Covid-19 forced us to make some very tough decisions very quickly.”
By taking care of business by maximising the potential of new acquisitions and the relentless winning of new contracts, Zeus increased turnover 13.5% to €210m.
Creating a new board structure and appointing a CEO has allowed Brian O’Sullivan more time to focus on strategy, innovation and sustainability as the company grows ever closer toward “a possible half billion euro turnover”. Regardless of the changes, however, this teacher turned entrepreneur has no intention of sitting back and smelling the roses anytime soon.
“I’m as hungry for success today as I was thirty years ago picking stones in fields for a pound a day. My biggest business lesson has always been to jump the fence that’s in front of you, and that’s what I plan to keep doing.”
Zeus Packaging is recognised as a Deloitte Best Managed Companies 2021 award winner. Applications for next year’s programme will open in January 2022. For more information about the programme, email .
