Pet foods boss trying to return some staff to work

The managing director of C&D Foods, which was seriously damaged by a fire on Sunday night, said last night he was doing all he could to return some staff to the pet food factory in Edgeworthstown, Co Longford, as soon as possible.

Philip Reynolds said three project teams were already examining possibilities.

The "soft can" facility, which produces portions of pet food in trays and pouches, was not damaged by the fire. However, it relies on services from the other part of the plant. A team was examining the feasibility of reopening this facility. About 40 per cent of the 500 staff work in this part of the factory.

Mr Reynolds said he was examining the possibility of outsourcing work, with the agreement of customers, until the factory was ready to resume production.

C&D Foods already had some offers of help, "and we are looking at all options available to us", he said. "The difficulty is that nobody in the industry would have the capacity to be able to accommodate the throughput of the facility here."

The factory produced 160 million cans of pet food last year. Even if third-party sources could be found, the economic viability of doing this would also have to be examined, he said. The factory's existing stocks will run out in about one to two weeks.

Mr Reynolds said the insurance implications of the fire were still unclear. C&D Foods had a whole suite of insurances to cover an event like this, he said.

"But it's all linked to what happens to the business down the road and we won't know the full extent of what insurances are available to us until we see ultimately what the future of the plant holds." Asked if the company was covered for loss of earnings during this limbo period, he said: "All of that is dependent upon what the future of the plant is and it's all tied up in the same insurances. Our insurance guys are here as well today so we are starting to go through each element of that and we are trying to unravel that for ourselves as well. It's not clear at this stage."

He said the Reynolds family had been very supportive since the fire. "My father [ former taoiseach Albert Reynolds] is back behind the desk today. My wife is upstairs in the office. I don't know when she last set foot in the place and I even have my daughter here. It's difficult but we'll keep going."

Asked if he believed the factory would eventually resume full production, he said "My heart wants that to be the case. I've spent too many days here, put too much into it, to see it like it is today. You usually can't find a car parking space in here and you'd have no problem doing that today. And I'm doing all I can to ensure that if that's at all possible, that's what will happen."

Meanwhile, local business people in Edgeworthstown were still contemplating the implications for them. "It's disastrous, just disastrous," said Alex Kane from Kane's Garage near the factory. "There are three shifts in the factory and we get them all coming in here."

Across the street, Blue Dolphin Properties was hoping the factory would reopen soon. Co-owner Christina Devine said C&D Foods was the backbone of everything in Longford.