Eggs-traordinary Mullagh company to be sold

Margaret Farrelly stood behind a reciprocal mirror, transparent from her side and reflective at the other. On the opposite side of the glass to the Cavan egg producer, stood a suited and astute marketing executive, with a focus group of eight sitting in a nondescript room. They were a sounding board for an innovative concept to build a wholesome branding model around eggs.

“Eggs had no personality,” explains Margaret, a woman with no shortage of said chutzpah.

By 2016 the canny Margaret was already working with Bord Bia on how to add value to her eggs, and ultimately set apart a product already a main staple in many Irish homes.

They spent months fine-tuning the proposal with Trinity Brand Group by the time focus groups entered the fray.

“We could see and hear them, but they couldn’t see us. At the end of each session, we’d go through and talk to the group in person,” explains Margaret, before adding with a chuckle: “There’d be this line of questioning. ‘What do you imagine is behind the scenes when you go to buy free-range eggs?’. More often than not someone would reply ‘an old woman, stoutish, with grey hair and an apron’.”

Of the eight different focus groups, each with eight persons offering feedback, 63 out of the 64 immediately opted for the ‘Margaret’s Eggs’ branding over the former ‘O’Egg’ after meeting the enigmatic Margaret in person.

It was a case of “right product for the right time” for Clonarn, she humbly admits, with the country shaking off the shackles of economic downturn, and consumers becoming more contentious about their buying habits, both from a health and eco-waste perspective.

Margaret’s infectious enthusiasm and simple joy for life translated well - whether embracing all with open arms to her stall at the Taste of Cavan, or during her numerous TV appearances where she repeatedly won over audiences with her modest and mothering manner.

Now, after 34 years in a business set up initially to supplement income from husband Leo’s farm near Mullagh, Margaret is preparing to move a step closer to hanging up that iconic apron after a striking a deal to sell the family company, Clonarn Clover Ltd, to Monaghan’s The Nest Box Egg Company.

By the end of this month the takeover of one of Ireland’s longest established free-range egg packers will be complete.

The Nest Box Egg Company Ltd made the announcement by e-mail on August 3, describing the deal as a measure of the Castleblayney-based firm’s “commitment” to the Irish egg industry.

In the one hand Nest Box has purchased a once cottage industry starting with just 150 hens that became a burgeoning business working with several dozen farmers across Cavan, Meath, Longford, Limerick and Monaghan and a free range flock of almost 200,000 hens, packing close to 50 million eggs a year. In the other, Nest Box is embracing a ready-made brand, that has pushed innovation in the sector with its pasteurised liquid egg products for cooking and baking, to become one of the most easily identifiable trademarks on the Irish shop shelf.

Margaret is rightly “very proud” of how far the Clonarn business has travelled, after capitalising on an opportunity to grow the free range business after battery cages were banned by the EU from January 2012, forcing egg producers to instead switch to an enriched colony system.

“At the end of the day [Nest Box] saw value in what we had, which makes us very happy,” says Margaret, who will remain at the helm for the immediate future at least to help smooth over the change in ownership. “A good deal is when nobody is happy, isn’t that what they say?”

While the approach was initially made back in 2020, the real cut and thrust of negotiation was only in the past six months, with both parties entering into a binding confidentiality agreement.

Though details of the deal for Clonarn, the third largest supplier of free range eggs in the Republic of Ireland, remain undisclosed, Margaret confides that her priority, and that of the Farrelly family, was that everyone who had helped develop the business down through the years would be “looked after”.

“Those people, our suppliers and staff, are as much a part of the Clonarn success story as anything else, and I’d like to acknowledge that. Adrienne [McGuinness] and Brian [Eivers] were happy to honour our request, and that obviously helped move things along as well, us having confidence knowing this was the right thing for the business.”

She accepts news of the buyout did come as a “shock” to both staff and suppliers when first announced, but assures: “Nothing will change. It’s simply a case of being part of a bigger team, and I hope that’ll afford them many more opportunities as well.”

Nest Box is the first Irish egg supplier to gain access to the Singapore market since the easing of restrictions, securing a deal to supply free-range and organic Irish eggs under their ‘Golden Irish’ brand to Redmart, a leading grocery e-commerce site in Asia.

Singapore, with a population of nearly six million in an area the size of Louth, is heavily reliant on food imports for food security. Irish exports to Singapore were valued at over €36 million in 2020, with dairy exports accounting for €26 million. The island state is also an important market for Irish duck with fellow Monaghan-based business, Silver Hill Duck, entering the market there in 2014.

“They’re also in the UAE, which is brilliant as well. One of the things that attracted them to what we did is our interests in innovation and branding, and to be quite honest, we would never have seen our future as a business to being in the shell for retail because it’s far too competitive and really we wouldn’t have the economies of scale. So our long-term vision was always in developing value added products, and I hope time will show [The Nest Box Company] is getting a good deal in that area.”

Few who know her well, Margaret admits, can see her retiring full time. With three adorable grandchildren living only a stone’s throw away, she’s certain to be kept busy. “I’ll stay on with [Nest Box] for a little while, an unspecified amount of time, and our key people are moving as well. Everyone will be given the opportunity to move, so it will be up to them to choose what suits them best. More than that we couldn’t do.”

Margaret adds that she’s as excited for the Eivers brothers at Nest Box as she was when Clonarn processed its first liquid egg through their Cootehill plant back in 2012 and the local business soon after realised they were onto a real winner.

“There is such good will, and we’re very happy with the deal. I couldn’t make that up. It’s important for people to know as well that we were 100 per cent every minute too operating in the egg industry. We loved it. Everyday was a challenge, and we met every day with a ‘can do’ attitude. I think that’s something, I’m not bragging about it, but Leo and I would have worked together to solve every problem, and together it helped that we believed there was a solution to every problem, big or small. Looking back now, everything was a joy.”