Mr Cheestrings: ‘We went from nothing to €100m in 20 years’

FORMER Kerry Foods marketing director Denis O’Riordan has said that the desire to win has been the driving force behind the success of Cheestrings which has “gone from nothing to €100m” in little over 20 years.

Known as “Mr Cheestrings” by his colleagues, Mr O’ Riordan, who recently retired from his role at Kerry Foods, was awarded the first ever Industry Champion Award at the Bord Bia Food Awards last week.

He told the Farming Independent that the success of Cheestrings, which he has been at the helm of since its inception in 1996, was driven by the motivation to win and teamwork.

“The brand is about €100m in value now. That’s about €2m a week. It’s gone from nothing to being worth €100m.

“We built the brand together and won and believed we could win. There’s great fun in working in a team and trying to win and in my working lifetime that’s what I’ve enjoyed most — working together and then going on to win and win,” he said

Mr O’Riordan said Kerry Foods’ takeover of Golden Vale in 2001, allowed the brand to expand its exporting base and is now consumed by 350 million people around Europe.

“Kerry bought Golden Vale, I got more investment and more capacity to move in to other markets in France and Germany and Benelux and more recently the Mediterranean including Italy, Spain and Portugal,” he said.

Mr O’Riordan lives only a mile away from the Kerry Foods factory in Charleville, Co Cork where Cheestrings is produced. He said he takes pride that locally produced food is being enjoyed by consumers and aiding the growth of the local rural economy there.

“It’s a great feeling when you go and sell what you have from your own community and there’s a person in Lisbon or Munich who buys our product and pays €2 for it and there’s a car service or a coffee shop in Charleville who gets a penny out of that. It’s delivering back to our communities as well as our business,” he said.

Kerry Foods also won the Export for Bigger Business Award, while the Export for Smaller Business Award went to Silver Hill Farm, which supplies duck products worldwide.

Based on the Border, in Emyvale, Co Mongahan, head of sales Barry Cullen said it’s furthering its focus on the South East Asian market to deal with Brexit.

“We looked toward South East Asia long before Brexit was talked about and we’ll continue to do business everywhere.

“We are in Singapore for the last four years, we launched in to Hong Kong last week and are looking to Malaysia this year. We’re looking at Thailand, Indonesia and Vietnam, so we’re very much focused on South East Asia.”