Established over 50 years, Teemore Engineering Ltd is a livestock housing specialist which leads the way in innovation and animal comfort. Irish Tractor Plant & Agri touched base with company Sales Manager Ray Foy to hear all about the most popular products it has on offer along the overall hopes for the business going forward.
Business is good these days at Teemore Engineering Ltd and the plan for Managing Director Colin Wilson and his team just outside of Derrylin, Co Fermanagh is to try and keep things that way for the foreseeable future.
Operating with 60 full-time staff, the company prides itself in the designing and supplying of outstanding products to its customers.
Indeed, over the past half century, Teemore Engineering has built up a reputation as one of the leading manufacturers and suppliers of livestock housing and handling equipment throughout Northern Ireland.
Sales Manager Ray Foy has been with the team for 18 years now and filled Irish Tractor Plant & Agri in on the details of a thriving business and also gave us his thoughts on what separates it from the competition.
“It’s busy enough right now. We can’t complain,” he outlined. “What we would do is all livestock equipment for internal buildings – beef, dairy and sheep – and we focus on cow comfort, handling facilities and general kit outs of normal farm buildings.
“We are a distributor for some of the European companies like Jourdain who are the largest tubular manufacturer in the world. They are a French company and we are a distributor for them in the UK and Ireland, and we’re a distributor for another French company called Bioret Agri, which supplies mattresses and rubber products, so comfort products.
“We also manufacture our own range of cow and heifer cubicles, drinkers and handling facilities.”
Right now, one of the most popular products that Teemore Engineering is selling is the Teemore Five Bar Estate Fencing, which provides an excellent boundary and enclosure for estates, gardens, parks, and other areas requiring a secure perimeter.
It’s a premium fencing solution that combines durability, elegance and security. It is perfect for residential and farming properties and is a fencing system that offers a timeless aesthetic and robust construction to enhance the overall appeal and safety of any estate.
“So, the Five Bar Estate Fencing is a new product that we have started in the last few years now,” Ray explained.
“Ultimately, it’s a slight sideline to what we’d be normally doing because we’d always have been doing agricultural stuff. This opens up a bit of a market to the general public as well. It’s not just farmers or customers, because people with private houses can buy estate fencing.
“Basically, it’s a five-bar galvanised rail fence because the timber fences that people would’ve been erecting for years are not lasting. We went looking for alternatives and started supplying the estate fencing then.”
He added: “The estate fencing is very popular for us at the minute and another would be the complete calf buildings that we’re selling. So, it’s a Mono Calf shed and they’ve proven very popular. Plastic cow cubicles as well because people want more improved comfort.”
In August last year, Teemore Engineering hit a milestone which marked the 50th anniversary of its establishment.
It was a special occasion for the company that saw it hosting a big Open Day at its premises where some 200 people were in attendance, including politicians and journalists as well as many of its trade account customers and suppliers.
The celebration was worthy of the occasion and saw original founders Victor Wilson (Colin’s father) and David McMullen in attendance, while Ulster Farmers’ Union (UFU) president David Brown also spoke at the event.
Fast-forward some 12 months later and business is very much on the up again after a slower start to 2024 than perhaps some might have anticipated.
“We had an exceptionally good year last year. It was probably the best year on record,” said the Sales Manager.
“We sell in three different markets that we would break down to three different categories. We have the UK mainland, which is England, Scotland and Wales, then we have Northern Ireland which we count as a separate home market, and then we have southern Ireland.”
So, all of that considered, the burning question is what has been the secret to the continued success of Teemore Engineering over these past five decades?
How has a small start-up grown into what is now a thriving business and one of the largest private sector employers in the south west Fermanagh area?
For Ray, he sees much of it coming down to the quality of product that the company offers its customers day in, day out.
“It’s because we supply the best quality in the market place and we have been consistently good quality. We don’t tolerate product failure, so we have built a rapport with our customers on product quality,” he stated.
Looking at the coming months for Teemore Engineering, its Sales Manager says he can see a bright picture and, of course, is hoping that a better milk price than the current one will play its part in that.
“We’re optimistic. We have seen that agriculture was under a little bit of pressure with the milk price.
“We’re very dependent on the dairy farmer in particular, but we’re very optimistic that towards the end of the year that the milk price will improve and our business will reap the rewards of an improved milk price,” Ray concluded.
Teemore Engineering Ltd
Derrylin,
Enniskillen,
Co Fermanagh (BT92 9BL)
Tel: +44 (0)28 6774 8377
Email: [email protected]
Opening Hours:
Monday-Friday, 8am-5pm
First published in Irish Tractor & Agri magazine Vol 12 No 4, November/December 2024
