Supplying milking machines (including an unbeatable back-up service) to the agricultural industry for over four decades, East Cork Dairy Services opened a second outlet this summer to cater for its growing customer base in neighbouring Waterford. We met up with founder / director Tim O’Mahony to trace the history of the business as well as to mark the historic opening of Waterford Dairy Services.
East Cork Dairy Services – Ireland’s longest-serving Dairymaster agent – provides top-class, reliable milking machines and milking solutions, greatly assisting dairy farmers in maximising their productivity, as well as an unrivalled, prompt and professional servicing and repairs service. Over the past forty years and more, the company has developed a reputation as leaders in their field, putting decades of expertise, experience and enthusiasm to great use to offer a service that’s simply second to none.
The range of equipment and supplies offered includes milking machines and systems, water heaters, automatic scrapers, parlour wash troughs, parlour feed systems, cluster cleanse systems, moo monitors and drafting with solutions tailored to meet each dairy farmer’s specific individual needs.
Highly-trained, knowledgeable and helpful staff are on hand to assist customers with their every need and the extension of the distributor network through the genesis of a second outlet – Waterford Dairy Services – in July of this year will yield further growth in the coming years. Decades on from its inception, this exceptional business continues to gather pace.
Tim O’Mahony, who set the business up alongside co-director Tom Barry, boasts almost half a century of experience of the dairy sector. Having completed a course at Moore Park, Fermoy, he joined Imokilly Co-Op in 1966 and tested and serviced milking machines there for the next six years.
“I started out on my own in 1972,” he reflects. “In 1973, we became the first agent Ned Harty [Dairymaster founder] had. In 1975, Tom Barry came on board as my business partner and we traded as O’Mahony & Barry until the mid-eighties, before forming East Cork Dairy Services.”
In the formative years, Tim and Tom did servicing and breakdowns. The business grew organically and quickly on the back of providing farmers with an excellent level of service. “Dairymaster was starting to grow in the late ‘seventies and we started to sell equipment too and the workforce started to grow,” Tim continues.
When the quotas came in during the ‘eighties, East Cork Dairy Services continued to get a lot of business as they were providing an exceptional service and repairing every make of milking machine. “We were providing a complete 24/7 breakdown service, 365 days a year and the business grew on the back of that,” says Tim. “We continued to grow throughout the ‘eighties and took on more employees. As more technology was introduced and the equipment became more electronic, we brought in more qualified people, including Paddy Curran, who’s qualified in electronics and who is now a director in the company.” The fourth director in the business is Tim’s daughter, Sarah, who also works in accounts.
Regarding the steady growth of the business from the 1980s onwards, the affable Cork man explains: “We were doing a lot of machines in East Cork and all over Cork and we were also doing a good bit of business in Waterford, so we kept growing, again through the quality of our service and the breakdown service.
“When a customer has a breakdown, we try to get him up and running again within an hour. That’s what we aim for. We always have a man on call, around the clock, as well as a back-up man and even a third man if needs be. You have to get the machines back working as quickly as possible.
“We’re service driven. Since Day One my aim has been to provide a quality service and my outlook has been that everything else will follow. The farmer is under fierce pressure when he’s broken and once you get him fixed quickly he’ll appreciate it and the chances are he’ll do business with you again.” This is why East Cork Dairy Services boasts hundreds of satisfied customers all over Cork and Waterford!
“We’re expanding the whole time and gaining new customers all the time,” Tim continues. “We have around 800 customers in total between Cork and Waterford and we handle all the installations in East Cork for Dairymaster.”
To ensure the optimal levels of customer satisfaction, a team of 14 is employed at present, including four fully-qualified milking machine technicians. Although fresh blood has been introduced to ensure that the business remains at the cutting edge, founder Tim O’Mahony keeps very much up to speed with everything that’s going on in the milking machine sector. “I know what’s happening on the ground,” he confirms. “Things are getting more advanced but we are staying on top of it.”
As well as supplying, installing, servicing and repairing Dairymaster equipment and all associated tools etc., East Cork Dairy Services stocks literally anything a dairy farmer could want, from detergents to complete parlours. Even though the Waterford branch only opened in July, it has already been a great success.
Is the business seasonal at all? “Not really. It was back in the ‘70s but now we’re busy all year around. We’re putting up and servicing parlours for twelve months of the year. Indeed, some of the farmers are so busy that they’re having their parlours serviced several times a year.”
But have dairy farmers got much disposal income to spend on new equipment? “It was looking fairly good last year when milk prices were good but they have dropped again. The grants are helping but you’d still like to see prices go back up above 30cent for it to take off again. Having said that, we’ve a lot of work on at the moment and plenty of sales and enquiries.
“Labour is the biggest problem farmers are facing. It’s very hard to get properly-trained lads to take on milking. If they could get more lads in to milk, that would be a big help. More needs to be done to encourage lads to take up milking, because it’s a very good job and there’s a shortage of labour. The farmers don’t have any problem paying wages; there just aren’t enough good lads prepared to do it.”
East Cork Dairy Services also build extensions onto existing parlours if required, although complete new builds are every bit as popular. “With the grants, it pays better to get a whole new parlour,” Tim points out. “A lot of farmers are moving out of their existing facilities and there would be as many brand-new ones as extensions. We can install anything from a small ten-unit parlour to an 18- or 20-unit up to a bigger 26- or 30-unit parlour, while we also do our share of 50-unit and 60-unit rotaries. Whatever the famer wants, we will supply it.”
Looking to the future, Tim confirms that East Cork Dairy Services won’t be taking their eye off the ball: “We’re confident that once we continue to give a good service we’ll have plenty of work, so that’s what we’ll do,” he concludes.
East Cork Dairy Services,
Ladysbridge,
County Cork.
Tel: 021 4667385
Waterford Dairy Services: 058 22994
Email: [email protected]
Taken from Irish Tractor & Agri magazine Vol 3 No 9, October 2015
