Lough Erne Investments Ltd is a leading beef producer based in Co. Fermanagh. Consisting of four farms, the company was set up two years ago by local man Charles Crawford whose name is synonymous with the egg industry.
It was very much a case of Charles returning to his roots when he set up Lough Erne Investments in April 2014. A beef farmer in bygone days, his focus for nearly 40 years had been on growing his company, Ready Egg Products, which is recognised as the largest egg producer and processor in Northern Ireland.
Eager to get back into beef farming, Charles purchased four parcels of land totalling 1,000 acres within close proximity of each other in the beautiful Lakeland county of Fermanagh. The main farm is located near the village of Clabby, which is three miles from Fivemiletown. Here, hundreds of Aberdeen Angus cattle are reared and fattened each year along with a smaller number of lambs.
“Charles bought the Clabby farm as a greenfield site at the end of 2013 and it’s become the centre of our operations,” farm manager David Ritchie explains.
“It’s a 270-acre farm which is similar in size to the other three farms. Here in Clabby, a lot of time and effort went into designing and researching the type of housing and feeding facilities that would best suit our needs and maximize our returns.
“We currently have 1,300 beef cattle and plan to increase that number over the next 12 months, despite the fact that beef prices have been stagnant of late due to overproduction. But there is still a profit to be made if you do things as efficiently as possible.”
The process begins with the purchase of Angus calves from local farmers when they are two / three weeks old. The aim is to have them finished at 22 months. While most of the cattle are out on grass for eight months of the year, the heavier stock are brought indoors at the end of August.
“We supply our beef to Linden Foods in Dungannon. It ends up on the shelves of Tesco and Marks & Spencer supermarkets throughout Northern Ireland,” David says.
“We are achieving very good weights, with the males averaging 345kg and the females 300kg. Our cattle are reared in a healthy and stress-free environment, which results in beef of the highest quality. We insist on Angus cattle because they are easier than most other breeds to fatten and you have a tender, succulent, delicious and saleable product at the end of it.
“There is also a bonus scheme available to Aberdeen Angus producers in Northern Ireland that can make a difference to your profit margin.”
The cattle are housed in straw bedded sheds, while the feeding area is slatted. Lough Erne Investments has also invested in a computerised feeding system designed to accurately dispense feeding supplements to calves by reading the electronic tag on their ears.
David is assisted in the day-to-day running of the enterprise by three staff. All of the slurry spreading, reseeding and silage cutting is left in the capable hands of Newtownbutler-based agricultural contractor Neville Rickey.
The farm is also home to 180 Charolais and Suffolk cross ewes. Their lambs are supplied to Linden Foods as well. “The lambing season went well this year. We had several sets of twins and triplets, and the lambs were healthy and sturdy,” David adds.
Charles Crawford is a well-known and widely-respected figure within the Irish and UK egg industry. He set up Erne Eggs in 1978 and within four years had developed the business to become the largest egg packing and producer in Northern Ireland. In 2007, he established Ready Egg Products as a joint-venture between Erne Eggs, Irish Egg Products and Greenfield Foods. Ready Egg Products was set up to provide egg products to the food service and manufacturing sectors in the UK and Ireland.
The company continues to go from strength to strength, having recently invested £3 million in expanding its Lisnaskea facility and £7 million in opening a second egg processing plant in Markham Vale, Chesterfield. The extension at Lisnaskea was required to facilitate a new grading machine and conveyor system that couldn’t be accommodated in any of the existing buildings.
“We handle two million eggs a day and we just need space to store raw materials and store the finished product,” Charles said at the time.
“You don’t buy our egg as an egg. You go into the shop and buy a meringue which our egg is in. If you go into McDonald’s, for instance, all the mayonnaise in the UK is made from our eggs. If you buy a Marks & Spencer sandwich with egg in it anywhere in the UK, it will be our egg.”
Ready Egg Products employ over 100 people. In addition to their 375,000 chickens in Lisnaskea, they deal with another half a million free range hens on contract to farmers throughout Northern Ireland. The company recently began exporting frozen egg to Dubai and plans to export to other countries in the near future also.
Lough Erne Investments Ltd
Manor Waterhouse Farm,
Lisnaskea,
Co. Fermanagh.
Telephone: +44 (0)28 33220416
Taken from Irish Tractor & Agri magazine Vol 4 No 6, July/August 2016
