Success after recession is icing on the cake

Aidan Comerford, sales manager for the Comerford Brothers bakery in Newbridge, Co Kildare, says the recession "put a fire under" the family business.

Established in the 1950s by Aidan’s grandfather, the company has invested in new machinery in the past 15 years, broadening its product range and focusing on the export market which now makes up 50 per cent of its €16 million turnover.

Comerford's specialises in cakes that can be found in the "ambient cake section" of supermarkets. The decision was made in the early 1980s to abandon bread production in favour of specialised cake-making, a process Comerford describes as more labour-intensive than bread-making. Queen cakes are the company's biggest sellers – they make a staggering one million of these buns every week – alongside 200,000 other cakes, including Swiss rolls, Madeira cake and fruit cakes.

Before being approached by Lidl about 15 years ago, the company employed 35 staff, a figure which has since grown to 130.

The company manufactures for Lidl’s own brands across Ireland and, at the beginning of March this year, its products were also introduced to the company’s UK stores.

“We grew as Lidl grew. They became a major retailer in Ireland and so we became a major producer,” says Comerford.

“Over 50 per cent of what we do is exported to the UK. Dealing with Lidl in Ireland helped us to deal with multinationals and it’s an area we can do well in.

“We make better product and we are good at the logistics side of things. There are empty trucks going back to the UK all the time so the cost is not prohibitive for us to focus on the UK market.”

Comerford Brothers is also flexible, adapting to changing and regional tastes in international markets.

“We work with retail partners if they believe there is a gap in the market for a particular product. We will do feasibility studies, buy the machinery if we believe the product is worth going with, show the retailer samples, tweak things within the confines of machinery, costs and ingredients and come up with something new,” says Comerford.

When the company was founded in the 1950s, the consumer simply trusted the baker to maintain high standards. Now a slew of inspections and audits from the HSE, the British Retail Consortium (BRC) food safety standard inspectors and various retailers means they employ five full-time people to concentrate on quality control and health and safety alone.

“Not only is it the right way to do business but it pays off: the factory becomes more efficient, cleaner, more productive, more streamlined and waste is reduced. Things like this might seem prohibitive in the early days but in the long run it pays to run your business this way because it improves everything you do,” he says.

Flexibility has been key. Comerford Brothers “custom-make” to suit individual retailers, even down to the cake case sizes and how the product can be stocked on the shelves. The past number of years has seen a huge investment in machinery sourced from the Netherlands, Germany, Australia and beyond.

Aidan’s father Aidan Comerford snr is the company’s managing director and has worked in the business for 50 years. He has played a key role in investing in machinery innovations and works with engineering firms to customise machines to their own specifications.

Building a new 2,800sq m (30,000sq ft) factory in 2007 may have seemed like a fool’s errand as the country fell into recession, but the company is now set to invest a further €2.5 million in another 1,860sq m (20,000sq ft) of space in the factory. Staff will continue to work 24 hours a day across three shifts.

While the company buys in bulk, they are not immune to the vagaries of the cost of raw materials. “If the price of a kilo of eggs goes up by 10 cent or the wheat crop is affected by bad weather, it can really impact the cost of your raw materials,” says Comerford who uses 15 tonnes of eggs per week at the bakery.

As well as his father, Aidan’s brothers John and Fintan both have managerial roles at the firm, while his uncles Peter and Danny are on the board of directors and heavily involved.

“This business is life. We live it and we live in it. We fought tooth and nail in the recession to make this business recession-proof,” says Comerford.