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Frozen Foods International News
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| Moy Park Becoming UK Poultry Giant |
Northern Ireland's Moy Park is about to become king of the roost,
the largest poultry firm in the United Kingdom, with the pending
acquisition of rival O'Kane Poultry. The firms' combined
turnover is close to £1 billion.
"The poultry markets of the UK and Europe are growing. By
bringing the resources and expertise of Moy Park and O'Kane
Poultry together, we are creating a business with the scale and
sustainability of supply needed to meet the very significant
growth opportunities that exist across Europe," said Nigel
Dunlop, chief executive of the Craigavon-based company.
"We are looking to underpin as many of the jobs as we can. At Moy
Park we have been able to grow profitability year-on-year, and we
have been able to broadly hold employment levels, so our ambition
will be to find ways to also grow the O'Kane business. It will
hopefully be a positive transaction for the people in O'Kane as
well as Moy Park," he said.
He admitted the merger could result in some redundancies but said
Moy Park would continue to invest in O'Kane and will go ahead
with the expansion of its Ballymena processing plant. Moy Park
and O'Kane Poultry currently sell around 200 million chickens and
1.5 million turkeys a year, and between them have contracts with
around 760 local poultry farmers. The joint company will have
8,500 employees, 5,000 of them in Northern Ireland.
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| 27-May-10 |
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