BY GORDON DEEGAN
ONE of Ireland’s largest independent yogurt producers, the award-winning Glenilen Farm last year recorded €5m in revenues.
The Drimoleague business is seeking to increase revenues by 8% to €5.45m this year.
The family-run business was established by husband and wife duo, Alan and Valerie Kingston in 1997, on Mr Kingston’s 8th generation dairy farm and has grown from a team of two to 40 people over the last 23 years. The portfolio spans 50 different products.
Alan said: ‘In 2019, Glenilen Farm sold 1.2m yogurt jars in the UK, and 21% of our 2019 turnover was from our UK based business, and we hope to see that increase to 25% of overall turnover in 2020, propelled by our glass jar yogurt range, which has proven very popular in the UK retail and food service market, and has seen sales grow by 50% in Sainsbury’s year on year.’
He said: ‘Our cheesecake range also launched in 170 Sainsburys in November last year which has proven a very successful introduction into the competitive dessert category in the UK.’
But he added: ‘There is still a lot of uncertainty around Brexit. However, what we do know is that the UK market will always be Ireland’s nearest neighbour and so the two countries will continue to depend on each other.’
The Glenilen brand of yogurts started off as a hobby in 1996 for Alan and Valerie and accumulated profits at the firm at the end of December 2018 totalled €1m.
The €108,220 profit for 2018 takes into account non-cash depreciation costs of €209,540.
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