Mega Reward For Aussie Immigrant
After scooping up over €40m from the sale of his Wicklow-based company, Megazyme, to US agrichemical multinational Neogen, the question must be asked: what has Barry McCleary ever done for us?
The full answer to that question depends on how much time you have. If you are an ice-cream fan, start by thanking him for developing a new way of manufacturing the stuff so it is smooth and creamy while still frozen. And if you care about your health but still rely on processed foods, be grateful that McCleary discovered how to add roughage without making your dinner taste like cardboard.
Do you like wine? McCleary is behind lab tests enabling vineyards to select the correct ingredients to produce the perfect tipple. He also takes a bashful bow when brewers happily declare that they no longer lose sleep worrying about the viscosity of their beers because McCleary also solved that niggling little problem. Mushrooms? Sliced bread? The list is almost endless.
Worldwide, food and drink manufacturers who cannot afford to employ rocket scientists in their ingredients laboratories sing McCleary’s praises for producing test kits that even the dopiest technicians can safely deploy.
In 1988, McCleary was one of Australia’s top agricultural scientists whose career was speeding towards a promotion. He feared withdrawal symptoms if he was no longer fiddling with test tubes and petri dishes. So he decided to quit, and in partnership with his wife, Angela Kennedy (sister of former Irish Times editor Geraldine Kennedy), McCleary moved into a garage and founded Megazyme.