Just a thread exploring how things might have evolved if fate hadn't intervened.
Summer 1967
Erin Foods was part of Irish Sugar Company and just had its future seemingly secured by Tony O'Reilly doing a deal with Heinz for a joint operation, Heinz-Erin Ltd. The first financial reports of the new entity seemed positive at Erin's AGM and the man doing most of the legwork on the joint operation was Irish Sugar & Erin Foods secretary, Paudie Sheehy. As a chartered accountant within the audit section of Irish Sugar, Sheehy was one of those hand-picked by then MD, MJ Costello, to go to USA for management courses at Harvard and Berkeley: he could see the meaning of the accounting figures for a business.
Without doubt Sheehy - now 37 and retired from playing foitball for Kerry - would have become Irish Sugar's next MD after O'Reilly soon left to join Heinz Europe. At that time Irish Sugar was a powerful force within both the agricultural sector and in food processing. To put things into perspective, when IS wanted a better harvester for growers the MD sumnarily brought world-leading designer Austin Armer across to oversee it. The harvester manufacturing division was such a success that its UK rival, Salmon, was soon forced to merge with it. Prize-winning pea & bean harvesters soon followed from Armer-Salmon. When IS wanted growers to use more lime before sowing they quickly bought up enough limestone quarries to make themselves the third largest quarrying and biggest lime-making concern in Ireland. This scale allowed much cheaper supply of agricultural lime to sugar-beet growers.
Due to Paudie Sheehy's sudden death in 1967, we will never know where he would have taken Irish Sugar. Would he have made it into something more durable in the face of EU quotas? Or would he have foreseen the coming storms and diversified into higher added value enterprises? This is a big what if question in the agri sector.
Summer 1967
Erin Foods was part of Irish Sugar Company and just had its future seemingly secured by Tony O'Reilly doing a deal with Heinz for a joint operation, Heinz-Erin Ltd. The first financial reports of the new entity seemed positive at Erin's AGM and the man doing most of the legwork on the joint operation was Irish Sugar & Erin Foods secretary, Paudie Sheehy. As a chartered accountant within the audit section of Irish Sugar, Sheehy was one of those hand-picked by then MD, MJ Costello, to go to USA for management courses at Harvard and Berkeley: he could see the meaning of the accounting figures for a business.
Without doubt Sheehy - now 37 and retired from playing foitball for Kerry - would have become Irish Sugar's next MD after O'Reilly soon left to join Heinz Europe. At that time Irish Sugar was a powerful force within both the agricultural sector and in food processing. To put things into perspective, when IS wanted a better harvester for growers the MD sumnarily brought world-leading designer Austin Armer across to oversee it. The harvester manufacturing division was such a success that its UK rival, Salmon, was soon forced to merge with it. Prize-winning pea & bean harvesters soon followed from Armer-Salmon. When IS wanted growers to use more lime before sowing they quickly bought up enough limestone quarries to make themselves the third largest quarrying and biggest lime-making concern in Ireland. This scale allowed much cheaper supply of agricultural lime to sugar-beet growers.
Due to Paudie Sheehy's sudden death in 1967, we will never know where he would have taken Irish Sugar. Would he have made it into something more durable in the face of EU quotas? Or would he have foreseen the coming storms and diversified into higher added value enterprises? This is a big what if question in the agri sector.