Westmeath finalist up for Enterprise Awards title

Twenty years of winners are being celebrated by the LEOs, including Westmeath, at the 2018 National Enterprise Awards, this week, and a Mullingar business is among the finalists.

Previous national winners, such as Paddy Dunning of Grouse Lodge Recording Studio, Rosemount, Irish Yogurts (1998), Obelisk (2000), Digiweb (2004), and Design Pro (2013), will all be recognised at this year’s ceremony in the Mansion House on Thursday, May 24. The Minister for Trade, Employment, Business, EU Digital Single Market and Data Protection, Pat Breen TD, will present the awards.

Christine Charlton, LEO Westmeath, said: "The awards are our chance to celebrate finalists’ economic impact on their communities, the jobs they have created, and the overall growth of their businesses.

"Combined, the previous winners now employ 832 people all over the country, have a turnover of over €131 million per annum and have €58 million in exports to 52 countries.

"These achievements deserve to be celebrated on a national scale and we know they will inspire other local companies here in County Westmeath too."

Westmeath is represented at the 2018 National Enterprise Awards by Ciaran Gorman and Darren Fenton from Bevcraft Ltd in Mullingar.

Bevcraft provides process and packaging services to the Irish craft beverage sector, including mobile contract canning. This service enables beverage producers to have their product canned on site using a choice of printed, labelled, or shrink sleeved cans.

Bevcraft is the only Irish contract canning solution specifically aimed at the craft and artisan drinks sectors (beer, cider, soft drinks, coffees, teas...).

The business to date:

Bevcraft was commercialised in mid-2016 by Darren Fenton and Ciarán Gorman, following extensive research, preparation and fundraising.

Their mobile systems have a combined capacity of up to 30,000 cans per day at the client site; and include provision of all can/ lid stock, application of labels/ branding, date coding/ traceability solutions, the canning process, final packaging, and pallet preparation. They were the very first company in Europe to launch a full service automated solution.

Bevcraft operates from an 8,000 sq ft production facility in Mullingar, where they have the capacity to store 3,000,000 cans. They also have extensive shrink sleeving and labelling technology, and a dedicated stock branding team.

The service processed some 1,100,000 cans in its first 18 production months. The majority of this production has been exported by their clients. In their first 18 production months they reached profitability and created eight new jobs.