Charles Crawford, Ready Egg Products
THE LOCAL company that supplies McDonald’s and Marks and Spencer is expanding yet again, this time investing £3m in their Lisnaskea factory.
The expansion at Ready Egg Products, located on the Crom Road is the latest multi-million investment from the firm, who opened a £6m egg processing plant in Chesterfield just last year.
The proposed single storey extension to the egg processing unit in Lisnaskea was approved at last week’s planning committee meeting with work soon to begin on site.
The extension is single storey and will provide an additional 2083 square metre of production floorspace.
The existing factory has 10939 square metre of production floorspace, 180 square metre of office space, 2608 square metre of storage and 219 square metre of ancillary space, equalling a total existing floor area of 13,946 square metre .The extension is within the existing site area and will provide new packaging, grading and dispatch areas.
The new extension is located to the rear of the complex in a previously developed area used as a concrete yard and hard-core laneway.
Ready Eggs owner Charles Crawford explained that the extension is required to facilitate a new grading machine and conveyor system that is so large it cannot be accommodated in any of the existing buildings.
“It’s the extension of a business that is growing and every year, so we have to continue to spend money. We handle two million eggs a day and we just need space to store raw materials and store finished product.”
Initially solely an egg production company Ready Egg Products is now an egg production and processing company, with their English factory handling the latter. While you won’t find a half dozen Ready Eggs for sale in your local shop, chances are you will have tasted them in anything from a sandwich, to mayonnaise to a meringue.
“You don’t buy our egg as an egg you don’t go into the shop and buy our 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 United Kingdom is made from our eggs. If you buy a Marks and Spencers sandwich with egg in it anywhere in the United Kingdom it will be our egg.”
Ready Egg Products employ over 100 people and “are creating jobs all the time,” explained Mr Crawford. In addition to the 375,000 chickens in Lisnaskea they deal with another half a million free range hens on contract to farmers throughout Northern Ireland. While their main market at present is the UK, this week they exported 25 tonne of frozen egg to Dubai.
“It’s an American market, but the Americans have a supply shortage at the moment so they’ve actually sourced ourselves. We’re hoping there will be one shipment a month and we have others in the pipeline.,” added Mr Crawford.
Local UUP councillor Victor Warrington praised the investment at Ready Eggs.
“They’re a very progressive firm. I visited the premises about a year ago and I was amazed to see such an operation in rural Fermanagh. You’re not talking about a few dozen eggs , but rather a few million. It’s great news and I think they’re also a good employer from what I hear and treat their staff well.”
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