Based in Patrickswell, Co Limerick, Phil Bennis & Sons Ltd is a market leader in the supply and installation of equipment to the modern day pig farm. Irish Tractor & Agri learned more from the company’s founder and Managing Director, Phil Bennis.
Set-up in 1985, Phil Bennis & Sons Ltd today has seven full-time staff and is still very much a family run business serving agricultural clients throughout Ireland.
By importing direct from manufacturers in 10 countries, Phil Bennis & Sons Ltd. source and import state of the art equipment and machinery from all across the globe and supply it to some of the country’s most successful meat and pig producers at highly competitive prices.
Having the right equipment for breeding, raising and managing pigs for the meat trade can increase yields and quality, enabling producers to compete effectively in a global marketplace.
It’s all a far cry from when Phil first started out in this line of work, as the man himself explained when Irish Tractor & Agri caught up with him recently.
“I started off in the pig thing in Limerick and I was the manager of a co-op for eight years before I went out on my own,” Phil stated.
“I bought a Hiace van and travelled all over Ireland selling heating bulbs and my nephew, Shamie who’s a brother of Gary Kirby’s joined me. We met great farmers all over the country and, as a lad says, ‘they’d learn you’. They inquired about other products mainly flooring and it was from there that I was introduced to Nooyen and together we sold tribar flooring for pigs to all 32 counties in Ireland.
“At that time, I was still hurling for Limerick and the farmers always stood by me.”
Now coming up fast on 35 years since it was first founded by Phil and his wife Mary, the family-run business has seven full-time employees, including sons Philip and Eoghan and son-in-law, Limerick hurling great, Ciaran Carey and Phil’s grandkids are always lending a hand. A special thanks has to go to Ann Ronan who was with Phil from the start in a small cabin out the back of his house. Ann looks after the accounts among other day to day activities and according to Phil, “we would not be here today without Ann and my son Philip”.
For close on three-and-a-half decades, Phil Bennis & Son Ltd has been giving a personal, flexible and bespoke service to pig farmers.
Their complete product range for modern pig production includes housing, flooring, feeders, drinkers, insulation, ventilation, heating equipment, PVC dividers, crates, stalls, marking equipment, moving equipment, fogging/disinfecting equipment and more.
“We buy direct from the manufacturers and install the machinery ourselves,” Phil explained. “Based in Limerick, we have customers all over Ireland, including the north, and ex-pats in England.”
The company supplies the right equipment at the right price and appreciate the importance of customer relations. They supply everything from the small order to the tall order!
That’s something that the team at Phil Bennis & Sons Ltd never have and never will take for granted, according to the man himself.
“We’re fortunate to have such a strong growing relationship with our suppliers and lucky to have a loyal customer base that continues to grow,” said Phil.
It’s a competitive business, you have to give the best price but you can’t skimp on quality.
“We have confidence in the quality of our products which we offer at competitive prices.”
Innovative products such as their Balance Flooring from Nooyen helps keep them a couple of steps ahead of their competitors.
Phil Bennis & Sons Ltd remains the only provider of the quick and easy to install Balance Flooring in the country and the benefits of the farrowing slate with movable slow slat are multiple:
– Reduce the number of smothered and crushed piglets by 80%.
– As soon as the sow lies down, the sow’s slat will drop to the level of the piglet floor.
– When the sows gets up again, the sow slat will rise to a safe height.
– Passage for the piglets in front of and behind the sow.
– Easy operation by the sow through floor-mounted or side-mounted switching.
– Flexible positioning of the sow: straight or even diagonal set up if required.
– Labour saving: less extensive monitoring of the farrowing places.
– The piglet slats can be made of solid plastic (Blue Deck) or Super Coated expanded metal or woven wire.
As the sole importers in Ireland for respected brands such as Nooyen, Grow Feeder, Van Osch, Rotecna, Rectical, Unitron, Meier Brakenburg, Inter Continental, Interheat, Springer McGrath, and Igeba, Phil Bennis & Son can stand over their equipment.
These companies are continuously improving, testing and developing products to ensure that they are at the highest standard for increase of productivity.
Manufactured exclusively by Centriforce Products, Stokbord, for example, is a general purpose, value for money board manufactured from 100% recycled plastic, including agricultural farm film.
It can be fabricated and welded for a variety of agricultural applications, including: sheep and pig pens, poultry housing, cattle handling races, sheeting gates, feed trailer floors, grain stores and bins, lining troughs, partition boards.
This leading sheet brand, Stokbord offers more benefits than traditional plywood. It also provides significant long term cost savings as it does not rot and once installed, it requires no upkeep.
Fattener pens, meanwhile, are available in various materials – solid PVC, hammer proof HDPE panels or rock hard concrete panels together with Trespa doors, with stainless or galvanized steel posts.
Accessories such as stock prodders, pig markers, AI equipment, water valves/slurry gates and canopies are also in stock.
In the last five years, the team at Phil Bennis & Sons Ltd sold over 1000 Balance Floors for farrowing houses throughout Ireland. From Donegal to Cork to Wexford to Cavan to Tipperary to Offaly to Longford and so far business has continued to flow in 2019.
So if you’re planning to revamp your pig finishing houses and need the right penning system, or are simply looking for the optimum pig equipment for group housing of sows, you should look no further that Phil Bennis & Sons Ltd.
Having gained the trust of so many pig farmers, they take great satisfaction in helping to ensure pig production can be carried out to its highest potential.
Phil Bennis & Sons Ltd,
The Old Creamery,
Clarina Road,
Patrickswell,
Co. Limerick
Tel: +353 (0)61 355275
Fax: +353 (0)61 355616
E-mail: [email protected]
Taken from Irish Tractor & Agri magazine Vol 7 No 3, June/July 2019
