Cadbury Ireland expansion plans on track
Print16 September 2010
New machinery is expected to be installed in Cadbury’s Coolock plant in Dublin by the end of next month, and “up and running” by the year end, as part of a €20 million investment first announced last June.
Earlier this year, it was reported that Enterprise, Trade and Innovation Minister Batt O’Keeffe was to meet representatives of Kraft Foods in May in order to discuss the future of Cadbury’s confectionery manufacturing operations in Ireland.
The Minister was expected to emphasise the Government’s desire to retain Cadbury’s operations in Ireland at a delegation led by Mike Clarke, president of Kraft Foods Europe, and including Donal Byrne of Cadbury Ireland.
However, Cadbury Ireland MD Brian O’Sullivan told ShelfLife that the group is “delighted with [the] support” it has received from new owners Kraft.
When asked if he was concerned that Kraft had reneged on promises to keep Cadbury’s Somerdale plant open following its successful takeover of the British confectionery giant, he responded that Kraft had “fully endorsed” Cadbury Ireland’s plans.
“I can only speak from an Irish perspective and what we’ve found is we had plans in place which required investment in the Coolock factory. When Kraft purchased Cadbury they looked at those plans and fully endorsed them and gave us their full support to proceed on that basis.”
The latest €20 million investment was announced last June as part of a major restructuring of Cadbury’s Irish business that involved 200 redundancies. However, O’Sullivan said €100 million had actually been invested over the past two years, and he hoped modernisation would lead to volume growth.
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