Meredith Engineering of Stradbally, Co Laois is a company that has acquired a strong name for manufacturing quality machinery in a relatively short space of time. Directors Ian and Andrew Meredith tell us ‘attention to detail’ is integral to their business, along with the quality of the equipment they design and manufacture.
With years of experience building bespoke agricultural equipment, Meredith Engineering designs and builds custom-made farming equipment for farmers.
Brothers Ian and Andrew Meredith are at the helm of the family-run business which specialises in fertiliser spreader bogies, combine header trailers, bagging and grain buckets, furrow presses and refurbishment of time-worn machinery.
Manufacturing machines to exact specifications, they have earned an enviable reputation as a company that places a big emphasis on customer service. Their personal touch has ensured that a lot of the company’s orders and sales comes from repeat business.
“Like anything else, we wanted one or two machines for ourselves at the start,” recalled Ian Meredith when asked to trace the company’s roots.
“We set about making them and they worked out okay. Farmers from the surrounding area then came to us looking for one or two machines and it went on from there. So, it was more by accident than design that the company came into being.”
The burgeoning business dovetailed nicely with running a large scale family cereal farm which consists of lands the Meredith family own, lease and share farm.
“The farm grows wheat, rape, oats and barley under rotation and there’s a certain time of year on a cereal farm when you’re not as busy. We don’t mind spending time in the workshop.
“We established Meredith Engineering as a company two years ago but actually manufactured our first machine 12 years ago.”
Having grown up on the family farm, both Ian and Andrew honed their agricultural and engineering knowledge while attending college in the UK. Ian studied Agricultural Engineering in Reaseheath College, Cheshire while Andrew studied Agricultural Engineering in Harper Adams before going to on to work for Claas UK.
“When I came home in 1994 I wanted to progress and grow the family farm,” Ian revealed. “We started out with very little but, with my love of machinery, I wanted to drive it forward. The most popular machines we make are fertiliser bogies and header trailers which are going really well for us and we supply a number of New Holland and John Deere dealers.”
The Meredith Engineering manufactured fertiliser spreader bogie allows modest sized tractors to carry bigger mounted fertiliser spreaders. It reduces ground compaction while the design of the spreader frame incorporates a strong chassis which is supported underneath along its full length.
Models can be custom made for fertiliser spreaders up to the largest six-tonne capacity units, with options including: tandem axles with flotation tyres, steering axle, brakes, LED lighting systems and a range of colours.
The Meredith Engineering range of combine header trailers are designed to be safe, strong and convenient to use. The range of models include trailers with the ability to carry between 15ft and 30ft combine headers.
The combine header attachment points are all in full view of the operator, this allows easy attachment and detachment of the header. The header is latched to the trailer using two sliding latch pins.
Their bagging and grain buckets, meanwhile, are easy to fill, strong and durable and suitable for loading any type of loose material.
“We’re a young company putting our hands to anything. We pride ourselves on our attention to detail and making sure our customers are happy at all times.
“We’ve established a good customer base so far and we’ve exported machines to the UK and, more recently, as far away as Norway and Austria. When you get foreign sales, you get a great sense of achievement and to further grow our markets is our aim as we look forward to the future.”
If you would like to find out more about Meredith Engineering and their range of machines, get in touch and speak to Andrew or Ian who will be happy to help in any way they can.
Meredith Engineering
Beechgrove
Stradbally
Tel: 087 9544523/087 8384115
Email: [email protected]
Website: www.meredithengineering.ie
Facebook: meredithengineering
Taken from Irish Tractor & Agri magazine Vol 5 No 2, March 2017
