Proof is in the pudding: Irish bakers target growth

Irish bakers Seerys is set to serve up more than 800,000 Christmas puddings over the Christmas season. The Co Carlowbased company will send more than half of the desserts abroad. Seerys plans to break the one million pudding mark next year. Pictured are Brian Seery and Lorraine Seery of Seerys Bakery.

AN Irish baker, Seerys, will produce more than 800,000 Christmas puddings for the festive season, with more than half of them going overseas.

The Co Carlow baker, which employs 70 people, will export hundreds of thousands of the desserts to the UK, Germany and the Netherlands. The business imported 400 tonnes of sultanas from Turkey for this year’s pudding run.

“That’s a 40ft container arriving into our bakery in Tinryland every 15 days,” Seerys sales director Brian Seery said.

“The international export market is going to be very important to us going forward for our future development, despite what’s been going on in the UK. Next year, we’re planning to sell more than a million puddings.”

Seery said growth in pudding sales has taken off over the last 10 years. He said the company was selling fewer than 100,000 puddings in 2007 and that significant distribution deals in the UK added an extra half-amillion puddings to their sales.

He also said traditional puddings were steamed for five to six hours and that the same process had been employed in the bakery but on a “far bigger scale”.

Seerys has agreed distribution deals with Musgrave’s SuperValu and Centra shops, as well as separate agreements with Dunnes Stores and Tesco. The puddings are also stocked in Asda in the UK as well as Albert Heijn’s 800 supermarkets across the Netherlands. “Our success story shows you can set up a business anywhere, once you have the right team,” Seery said of the company’s headquarters.