‘Biodiversity and our farming operation go hand in hand’
Origin Green is Ireland’s national food sustainability programme. It is a voluntary programme led by Bord Bia that brings together farmers, food producers, retailers and food service operators with the common goal of sustainable food production. This month, we speak to Paul Finnegan from E. Finnegan & Sons/Finnegan's Farm.
Finnegan’s is a family run farming business operated by brothers Paul and Joe Finnegan. Together, they farm over 2,000 acres of land, with 500 acres dedicated to potato production and the remainder divided into wheat, barley, grassland and oil seed rape.
Located in the heart of the Boyne Valley region, Finnegan’s comprises two companies running parallel. E. Finnegan & Sons is the farming side of the business and the newly established Finnegan’s Farm is a food production business specialising in par-cooked potato and vegetable products.
What are the key points of your sustainability plan?
Our sustainable approach to farming is economically viable, environmentally sound and socially beneficial, making it work for us, the land and the community. We want to preserve the resources available to us so that future generations can also avail of them.
We own every step of the potato process and have full traceability on all of our products. Our leftover food waste is recycled and fed to our 170 suckler beef herd. The whole process from start to finish happens on our family farm in Balrath, Co. Meath. We aim to have zero food waste and little or no impact on the environment. During the Covid-19 pandemic, our main aim was to improve the quality of life and physical health of the homeless both in our own community and also on a larger scale. Locally, we are involved with the Soup Kitchen and Meath Women’s Refuge. We are also heavily involved with Athboy People Who Share Care, a group of volunteers who travel to Dublin city every week to provide hot food and drink, clothing and toiletries to hundreds of homeless people.
How important is biodiversity on your farm?
Biodiversity and our farming operation go hand in hand. As members of the All-Ireland Pollinator Plan 2015-2020, we want to increase the number of natural pollinators by protecting and maintaining their natural habitats.
As pollinators are made up mostly of bee species, we have installed eight beehives on our farm. These beehives are collapsible and can be relocated all over the farm depending on the availability of the best food source. At peak season during the summer, each hive will hold between 40,000 and 60,000 bees.
In addition to increasing the number of bees on the farm, we have reduced our mowing of grasslands by 33%. This provides a pollinator-friendly environment, allowing wildflowers to thrive in the long grass. We also have 30 bird boxes erected on the farm, providing a safe place for birds to build their nests and protecting them from predators and unfavourable weather.
How do your biodiversity efforts help the local community?
We seek to raise awareness of our biodiversity initiatives within the local community through pollinator-friendly planting and by engaging with groups such as the local environmental awareness initiatives. In conjunction with local schools, we have highlighted the importance of biodiversity by running open days on our farm, holding ‘Insect Hotel’ and ‘Bird Box’ workshops in a bid to educate the future generation and highlight the importance of biodiversity.
To find out more about the Origin Green programme, visit origingreen.ie
Mackin is another Cork contender in the EoY International category, led by award nominee Andy Mackin (pictured). His route to entrepreneurship included punts at lower-league English football and the hospitality trade before ending up on the high seas.
The founder hails from Dundalk and left school early to go to England, where he trialled for Torquay United, but failed to make the grade and ended up working in a hotel. He then joined the Irish Naval Service, where he worked for over 20 years.
While in the Navy, Mackin (53) trained in electrical engineering and health and safety management. Mackin Consultancy started out in 2004 providing health and safety training, and subsequently expanded to include environmental services consulting, helping companies secure ISO accreditation and organising employee training.
Most recently, Mackin Consultancy has expanded into staffing, providing recruitment, talent retention and workforce learning. Mackin EHS focuses on the environmental, health and safety services, while Mackin Talent provides the recruitment and talent consultancy solutions.
Mackin credits his involvement with Business Networking International (BNI) as a crucial ingredient in helping his business expand internationally. He says BNI referrals account for one-quarter of turnover at the environmental health-services unit.
The company’s accounts filing doesn’t disclose turnover and Mackin says revenue in 2019 was c.€11.5m. The business employs c.150 people and has offices in Cork, Dublin, London, Zurich, Hong Kong, and Shanghai. In America the main regional office is in San Jose, with additional outposts in Seattle, Pittsburgh, Austin, Charlotte, Raleigh and Vancouver. The latest office addition is in Hartford, which opened in June 2020. fastest takeover of one public company by another on the London stock exchange in over seven years.
Three years since being founded, Open Orphan is listed on the London and Dublin stock exchange, and has a market cap of over £90m. The venture has c.300 staff and is expecting turnover of c.€30m in the current year. And shareholders will be pleased to learn that the stock has more than doubled in value this year.
Limerick entrepreneur Pat Lucey believes that success should be earned, not won, and he embodied that principle while building Aspira. Lucey co-founded the project management and IT solutions business with Colum Horgan in 2007. Both had been senior executives in Motorola before it closed its Irish operations, making them redundant.
Aspira – originally called AspiraCon – signed up several local authorities, but the business hit a roadblock in 2009 when recession-racked councils stopped spending. Staff pay cuts and extended leave helped Aspira survive and since then it hasn’t looked back.
By 2014, Aspira had expanded its services to include employee training, as well as its project management consultancy and software solutions. In 2019, the company booked a profit of €627,000, and finished the year with cash of €1.4m and net worth of €3.7m.
Lucey (53) and Horgan (52) acquired B-Tec Solutions in 2016 and Aspira now employs 160 staff. The two founders came from families that ran businesses: Lucey’s family owned a shop, restaurant and service station in Limerick, while Horgan’s family operated a caravan and mobile home company in Kerry. The business partners credit that early exposure to business as helping to prepare them to form their own business.
Glofox is still at the stage of incurring hefty losses but the founders don’t lack for ambition and ability to source venture capital. The Dublin firm specialises in gym management software and targeted international growth from the outset.
Co-founder and CEO Conor O’Loughlin played rugby with Connacht before prematurely retiring due to injury in 2011, when he was aged 28. Having studied finance and coding in his spare time, O’Loughlin founded Glofox with Finn Hegarty and Anthony Kelly in 2014, initially as a web and app design consultancy.
The founders spotted an opportunity to develop gym management software that could handle payments, class scheduling, membership and other tasks in one platform, while also providing mobile apps that clients could brand.
Glofox generated turnover of €130,000 in its first year and O’Loughlin began the international push. Two years later, the company had customers in 15 countries. In the UK, Glofox tied down a partnership with the country’s largest yoga industry body and added a range of customers in the US.
Glofox’s USP is the way it integrates business-management software with a mobile app. It also majors on tailoring software to suit the type of customer, in contrast to the more generic and more complex software solutions from competitors. The company currently serves c.3,000 customers, has 150 employees and two-thirds of new business now comes from the US market. As a pandemic response earlier this year, Glofox launched a live streaming and on-demand content platform for locked-down gyms and studios.
Generous backers have enabled the Glofox growth story. The December 2018 balance sheet showed €2.5m in equity investment, €880,000 in loan notes, and accumulated losses of €3.6m. In May 2019, Glofox raised €7.8m in a round led by Octopus Ventures, which invested €4.4m.