During the recent FEFPEB Congress in Cork, delegates were treated to extensive tours of Irish timber production facilities, namely Mid Cork Pallets & Packaging and Glennon Brothers’ advanced Fermoy mill.

The former’s Macroom factory in County Cork has seen extensive rebuilding and expansion works over recent years and is a good example of an automated modern pallet production facility serving some of Ireland’s largest bluechip companies.

The business, established over 30 years, is owned by entrepreneur Sean Lehane and has an annual turnover in the region of €24m and an annual output of more than two million pallets

As well as the 25-acre Macroom site, Mid Cork Pallets also operates a 70,000ft2 storage and distribution centre in Dunboyne, County Meath, which is strategically located to service the major Dublin market.

"We had a big fire four years ago and a lot of the warehousing was fire damaged, but none of the machinery was affected," Mr Lehane said.

"We’ve built things back up and built a lot of extra warehousing. The whole €6m rebuilding process was completed last year.

The new buildings have been compartmentalised with fire walls for maximum fire protection. Now, the site has some 200,000ft2 of storage space for pallets and packaging.

An export-focused company with 90% of its products destined for export, the company’s large blue chip customers include the likes of Coca-Cola and Kerrygold. Mr Lehane said the Irish dairy product sector’s turnover was increasing because of the ending this year of an EU milk production quota system which limited the industry’s export volumes.

"Up until April, 2015 the amount of milk exports has been limited, but now production is expected to grow by 50% up until 2020," he added.

"There will be an increase in baby food, butter and cheese."

Some 90% of the pallets at Mid Cork Pallets are kiln-dried because of the company’s foodstuff/drinks and pharmaceutical customer base.

As you would expect from such a large pallet manufacturer, wood raw material requirements are considerable and are met by all the main Irish sawmillers such as ECC, GP Wood, Glennon Brothers and Murray Timber.

"Prices for pallet timber have been stable for quite a while. The large volumes of Swedish timber that have come in to the UK have not impacted the pricing situation in Ireland because of the shortage of logs.

"And the quality of Irish wood is very good. A lot of the delegates that came to the FEFPEB Congress commented on that." Pallet production facilities include Viking and Corali lines, the latter using Eirebloc composite wood blocks – used in about 90% of the company’s pallets. Generally only US pallet specification products are made with solid timber blocks.

Kilns supplied by Kiln Services Ltd also feature, as well as a Yaskawa robot for handling pallet blocks.

As well as standard pallets, the business is an approved EPAL (European Pallet Association) manufacturer, licensed to manufacture the EPAL Euro Pallet, and has a specialised pallet design service, plus repair/ reconditioning operations.

Mid Cork Pallets has a 50% share in composite pallet block joint venture Eirebloc (GP Wood is the other share partner), which Mr Lehane described as "very busy". Eirebloc’s expansion plans include tapping the Chinese market, with a few trial loads already shipped to the Far East.

"I think there is going to be a large market for pallet blocks in China," said Mr Lehane.

"We can fill a 40m3 container full of blocks and ship it to China as cheaply as we could to Europe because of the demand for containers for export to China."

Turkey is also an export destination for the business.

Future investment plans at Mid Cork Pallets includes developing a €6m combined heat and power plant to sell green electricity to the local grid.

Mr Lehane also hopes to automate the loading of the Corali pallet line in the future.

He is generally optimistic about business prospects in 2016, citing the low euro rate as a boost for exports, while predictions of an Irish GDP growth of around 6-7% for 2015 demonstrates that Ireland is maintaining its position as the fastest-growing economy in the eurozone