Jobs Boost As Offaly Meat Processing Firm Expected To Open New Factory
Thursday, 29 December 2011
AN Offaly based meat processing company, Rosderra Foods, plans to open a new factory in 2012, the Tribune can reveal.
Rosderra, based at Edenderry and Roscrea, is to open a plant in the Tipperary town in a former meat processing factory.
The plant, which once provided employment for over 230 people, is known locally as the Parkmore factory and was purchased in the last few weeks from Galtee by Rosderra Foods.
It is not yet known when the facility will re-open for business, or how many jobs will be created, but an announcement is expected sometime early in the new year - welcome news for the town, which has seen a steady rise in the numbers unemployed since 2008.
The extensive factory, familiar to motorists travelling into Roscrea as the large red-brick factory which greets people as they enter the town on the old N7 road from the Nenagh direction, is currently undergoing an extensive revamp and will be fitted out with new specialist equipment.
Thieves had managed to break into the facility while the premises was vacant and stole copper-wire, which has dramatically increased in value for scrap-metal recycling over recent years, requiring the refitting of a large volume of wiring and electrical equipment.
The Tribune understands that the facility will be primarily focused upon the production of pork-ribs and cooked-pork products for export, as opposed to the range of bacon, sausage, meat-puddings, joints and sliced cooked meats formerly produced at the plant.
The 45,080 sq-ft factory, located on a four acre site adjacent to the large roundabout on Roscrea's Nenagh road, was closed for over two years after production ceased on the site.
The company's factory at Carrig in Roscrea was the first ever farmer co-operative factory built in Ireland in 1907. The company, known then as Roscrea Bacon Factory Ltd., operated at a site in Castleholding, Roscrea.
Avonmore Foods acquired the company in 1987 and in 1989-90 operations were relocated to an industrial estate at the south-west of Roscrea, then called Irish Country Meats. In 1998 the merger between Avonmore plc and Waterford Foods plc took place and the joint company name was changed to Glanbia Meats Ltd.
Formed in March 2008 following a management buy-out of Glanbia Meats, Rosderra Meats brought together a number of long-established Irish pig processing companies to form a new entity whose headquarters are based in Edenderry.
Rosderra Irish Meats pig slaughtering and processing facility at Carrig in Roscrea has the capacity to slaughter up to 360 pigs per-hour, where processing involves the cutting and boning of products.
The company's products are sold in Ireland in fresh and frozen form and are also exported to EU countries, the United States and Japan.
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