Dublin food producer on the crest of an energy revolution

DESPITE THE recession, Tuesday, March 24th, was one of the most significant days in the 17-year history of Dublin food producer Country Crest – the day it finally touched the Holy Grail of 100 per cent energy self-sufficiency.

“In energy terms, I suppose you could say it was the first day of the rest of our business lives,” laughs managing director Michael Hoey (46), a 2004 finalist in the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year awards.

“Energy security will be hugely important for everyone’s future, and this also allows us to have the type of control over energy costs that we wouldn’t otherwise have.”

Hoey and his brother, Gabriel (43), last week welcomed Minister for the Environment John Gormley, who performed the official “opening” of the firm’s towering €1.5 million 800 kilowatt (kW) wind turbine.

“Obviously, the strength of the wind here varies,” says Hoey. “For four straight days from that initial Tuesday, we were generating more power than we required and even feeding the surplus back into the national grid.

“There will still be days when the turbine won’t quite be enough, but the next stage in our programme is the installation of an anaerobic digester, a combined heat and power unit, which will generate another 300kW or so, giving us far more than we need and allowing for expansion.”

With a turnover of €32 million in 2008, Country Crest produces 55,000 high-quality convenience meals a week for Dunnes Stores and Superquinn, while the client list for its prepacked potatoes, onions and carrots includes Tesco, Centra and SuperValu.

In addition to what is grown on its 2,000-acre farm in Lusk, Co Dublin, it contracts farmers around the State to grow another 26,000 tonnes of potatoes a year.

“When we left school, I remember our dad saying that one of us would have to get a job because the farm couldn’t support us all,” says Hoey, as he looks out over the potato fields on a beautiful sunny morning. “Now we employ 146 people.”

The brothers are the fourth generation of their family to farm the land in Lusk, but they are the first generation to have a vision of the business as environmentally sustainable and energy self-sufficient.

They already recycle their water, compost green waste, use recyclable packaging, keep food miles as low as possible, use greener fuel in their trucks and heavy machinery, use as few additives and preservatives as possible, and have complete traceability.

On the other hand, Hoey concedes, the business is not completely organic. “Our company motto is ‘growing in harmony with nature’, and we are. We have an environmental management system in place for the entire 2,000 acres, but we’re not fully organic. We can’t be, because that’s not the market.

“We operate an integrated crop-management system with all our growers and it’s very strict. We have an exacting system of monitoring inputs into the crops, so we would never use fertiliser, for example, for the sake of using it.”

He adds: “We build ponds and plant trees to protect the bird and plant life in a nature programme that we carry out and review every year. That’s always been part of our green ethos.”

Hoey sees no conflict between that environmental commitment and the demands of running a profitable business.

“Our electricity costs are considerable, between €33,000 and €36,000 a month, sometimes peaking at as much as €40,000, so we’d anticipate that the €1.5 million turbine will pay for itself over, say, eight years.

“Similarly, the anaerobic digester will cost around €750,000, but it will give us all the hot water we use in food production and it will also power a generator 24 hours a day so, again, it will pay for itself.”

According to Hoey, the company is constantly looking at its costs and examining ways to improve them.

“We see our energy strategy as part of that in the medium to long term,” he says. “Like anyone else, when it comes to business, we have to compete on price, especially these days when competition is fierce.”