Producing over 28,000 pigs per year, Horan Pig Enterprises in Glin, County Limerick is one of the leading producers of pigs in the Munster region and beyond. We met up with director John Horan to get an insight into the history, day-to-day activities and continued success of this outstanding family business, which is the only commercial pig farm in west Limerick.
The genesis of Horan Pig Enterprises can be traced back to 1972, when local pig farmer Tom Horan set up as a sole trader in Ballyculhane, Glin, County Limerick. Tom oversaw a successful operation for some 35 years before his sons John, Thomas and Paul (directors) took over the business and established Horan Pig Enterprises Ltd. as a going concern in 2007.
The business has since been completely reinvented and transformed, including the recent construction of a new state-of-the-art piggery to replace the old building, and Horan Pig Enterprises is now recognised as one of the leading producers of pigs not just in County Limerick but further afield.
John is pleased to report that the farm is performing well at present. “It’s going very well, although margins are tight.” This is a scenario that is all too familiar right across the agricultural sector these days: “The production end of the business is going really well, but the money end of it is proving to be a real challenge.”
Horan Pig Enterprises has a total of 1,100 sows at their disposal and each sow produces 26 pigs per year, which are sold into the breeding and pig processing markets. Production levels remain steady all year around and the state-of-the-art plant is operated to the very highest Health & Safety and Quality Control standards.
Hermitage Genetics in Kilkenny look after the marketing and sales of the breeding stock (including exports all over Europe), which accounts for up to 30% of total output, while the remaining 70% or so go into the pork processing chain nationwide, including Stauntons Foods and Rosderra Irish Meats Group.
Horan’s piggery in Ballyculhane is one of the most modern facilities of its kind in Ireland. The pig farm has been completely revamped and the end result is that the business is on very firm footing moving forward:
“We completely demolished the old farm and put up a new one in its place,” John reveals. “Everything has been revamped and updated and we now have one of the most modern pig farms in the country. I’d say at least 75% of the existing farm was rebuilt from scratch and it’s all state-of-the-art.”
This means that more efficiencies can be achieved in the running of the business, which results in a higher-quality product and service and in turn added benefits to the customer.
That’s not to say it is all plain sailing, however. Far from it, in fact. This is a tough business and it can be extremely difficult to squeeze out a profit, not matter how good your end product is. “The cost of feed is very high and our margins are tight,” John states. “At the moment, our margin over feed is only 45 cent per kilo on average and we could do with 55 – 60 cent.”
A staggering 150 tonnes of feed is purchased per week, mostly from Kiernan Milling and Southern Milling. Currently, Horan Pig Enterprises have all the feed delivered by the mills but John is considering investing in his own fleet in the near future to carry out his own transportation. The present fleet comprises just one vehicle: “We have only the one truck for the pigs plus a livestock trailer, and we would do three loads per week.”
During the 42 years since Tom Horan set out in the pig farming world, great strides have been made by the family business, which continues to go from strength to strength today. “There has been a lot of expansion over the years,” John agrees. “We’ve invested a lot of money in the new farm and we are lucky to have well-trained staff here, who all know what they are doing.
“The way things have gone, everything in the pig farm is automated now and there is very little manual labour involved, apart from moving, washing and loading the pigs. It’s all much easier to manage compared to the older farm.”
Employment is provided to a team of eight, comprising of four full time employees and two part time employees. Johns sister Mairead also helps out with book-keeping and banking.
Looking to the future, John sees the breeding market as a more attractive proposition than the pork processing one at present and hopes to increase the percentage of his pigs sold into breeding.
“We are in survival mode with the price of pigs and we hope to expand the breeding sales side of the operation, which gives us a better margin,” he concludes. “We were supplying a lot of pigs into breeding in Russia and we would be hoping that particular market opens up again soon, because we’ve taken a hit there. We’re also hoping to expand into other export markets. We’ve just sent small loads to Romania, Greece and the Ukraine but it wasn’t of the sort of volume that we’d ideally like.
“The quality of our stock is of the very highest standard and we are confident that we have a very, very high-quality product. The highest Quality Control standards are in place across the entire stock and we are audited by An Bord Bia and Red Tractor in the UK, so there is no doubting the quality of our operation.”
With over four decades of experience and one of the country’s finest pig farms, Horan Pig Enterprises Ltd. are in a league of their own right now.
Horan Pig Enterprises Ltd.
Ballyculhane,
Glin,
County Limerick.
Telephone: 068 36185
Taken from Irish Tractor & Agri magazine Vol 2 No 6, November 2014
