O’Connells Crecora Mills is an animal feed company serving the Mid-west and Munster. They deliver quality animal feed to Limerick, Kerry, Cork, Tipperary, Clare, Galway and further afield.
All their animal feed products have full traceability and are formulated with common sense and regard to animal nutrition needs as the year goes on. They are subject to regular Department of Agriculture Food and Fisheries inspections and have historically have always been ranked as among the cleanest animal feed mills in the country.
Very much a family-run concern, company founder John O’Connell and his wife Phyllis are joined in the running of the business by their children, Lorraine, Jonathan and Paul. Jonathan runs the Listowel branch while qualified nutritionist Paul manages the Castlemahon Mill and is head of nutrition.
Currently with 36 people on its payroll, Crecora Mills is completely focused on quality products and they are constantly developing and evolving their range to ensure they reach the highest standards at all times.
“We’re farmers ourselves which gives us a good understanding of what’s going on at farm level on a day-to-day basis,” Paul O’Connell informed Irish Tractor & Agri. “We always strive to be as efficient as possible in terms of product, service and delivery.”
John O’Connell Crecora Mills have the ability to manufacture a wide range of products for the animal industry. They make quality feeds for Beef Cattle, Dairy Cattle, Calves, Weanlings, Heifers, Lambs, Ewes and Horses. Their products generally come in the form of coarse ration, or blends as some call them, or in pellet (nut) form.
Producing quality pellets is somewhat of a specialty as different raw materials do not always gel together.
Ironically. some of the best products such as maize are the hardest to get a good dust free pellet from. Using their expertise and by trialling different ways of processing these ingredients and by using the latest pelleting technology, O’Connell’s have successfully managed to press high levels of maize (40 to 50%) with very good results.
“Farmers are extremely loyal to our Dairy Max grass nuts and Beef Finisher nuts,” Paul revealed. “We finish beef cattle ourselves and they work very well. We have an extensive range and we’re well-known in the Mid-west for our calf rations and nuts. People who use them tend not to change because they do what they say on the tin.”
In addition, the O’Connell family business also provide a nutritional advice service to their customers to help them grow their profits using their feeds. One of the reasons that the company has been so successful to date is the continued ethos that if they look after our customers by growing their profits then they will also benefit.
The story of this very successful family run business started many years ago.
John O’Connell started making animal feed in the early 1980’s as an attempt to diversify the family farm business in a time of Economic hardship.
Through a lot of hard work what started as a small enterprise buying, drying and selling local grain and selling chemicals grew into selling Rolled Barley, Wheat and Oats and soon mushroomed into a full coarse ration animal feed mill.
As demand for John O’Connells Animal feed products grew and grew so did the Mill in Crecora with the addition of computer controlled mill and an automated bagging plant and palletiser. Over the next ten years John O’Connell Crecora Mills became renowned in the Mid west area for the supply of quality animal feed using the best ingredients.
With a growing demand in the Kerry area a site was purchased in Lissahane near Listowel for storing and drying grain and also as a shop and depot for the North Kerry region. This has become the Listowel branch of the company.
In the 1990’s and 2000’s the mill in Crecora was constantly improved and retrofitted with more modern mixing and storage facilities and a higher capacity bagging line was fitted to keep up with the increased demand resulting in a clean tidy state of the art facility where all products could ensure full traceability with ease.
In 2007 with the mill in Crecora working night and day and reaching its maximum capacity a second mill was bought in Castlemahon following the closure of Castlemahon Food products. The loss in employment in the area was stemmed to some extent by the purchase of the mill in Castlemahon and today 8 people are directly employed at the site along with many more indirectly.
This Castlemahon Mill is a state of the art modern pellet manufacturing facility which was them extensively reworked by the engineering staff at John O’Connells to also incorporate a 40 ton per hour coarse ration line using all the expertise and experience gained over the last 30 years.
Between the two facilities up to 5000 tons of raw materials can be stored to ensure that there is always have adequate supply and up to 800 tons of finished product can be stored ready for dispatch to customers.
The delivery fleet which started off 30 years ago with one second-hand truck now comprises nine modern reliable trucks that are maintained to the highest standards fitted with high-speed bulk delivery systems.
“We pursue a policy of continuous investment in our transport fleet. We currently run a fleet of five tractor units, seven trailers and four rigid trucks. We hope to add two new trucks to our fleet this year to enable us keep up with the demand for our products.
“As I said, we’re always looking to improve quality, productivity and efficiencies in everything we do.”
Looking ahead to the future, Paul sees plenty of reasons to be optimistic for the family business and the farming sector in general
“It’s an extremely competitive industry. Brexit is a concern while the price of milk is a driving force. When farmers get a return on their investment, we generally tend to see the benefits of that. Ever since the abolition of quotas, farmers have been able to adopt a more business orientated approach and that can only be good for us as we look to continue our growth.”
John O’Connell Crecora Mills
Crecora
Co. Limerick
Phone: 061 355186
Fax: 061 355658
Email: [email protected]
Website: www.crecoramills.com
Taken from Irish Tractor & Agri magazine Vol 6 No 3, May 2018
