C&D Foods, set up by Albert Reynolds, became a major player in the petfood business, writes Arthur Beesley, Senior Business Correspondent
The family of Albert Reynolds faces a mammoth task to rebuild C&D Foods, the Longford petfood business the future taoiseach set up in 1969 with £25,000 of his own money and £50,000 in bank loans.
With time Mr Reynolds would rise to the leadership of Fianna Fáil and the highest political office in the land.
His company became one of the biggest manufacturers of petfood in these islands.
However, the achievement of C&D Foods, with annualised sales of €100 million, was in ruins yesterday after a fire on Sunday night devastated its factory in Edgeworthstown.
After 37 years in business, all that remained yesterday was enough stock for a fortnight. Big clients such as Dunnes Stores, Tesco, Sainsbury's and others will need new supplies of their "own-label" petfood very soon.
The question now is whether they will revert to C&D Foods when, and if, its plant is rebuilt.
In the fire's embers lay the remains of equipment that made 180 million cans of petfood per year and 160 million foil-wrapped and pouch products.
Staff at C&D Foods, some of whom have been with the company since its establishment, have been asked to meetings today to discuss terms for temporary redundancy.
"It's devastating for them and it's devastating for all the family," Albert Reynolds said yesterday. He made an emotional visit to the factory to inspect the damage.
Now controlled and managed by his son Philip, the company was testament to the entrepreneurial verve of a man who had the energy for many years to balance the heavy demands of top-level political life with a busy career in business.
There were times when the dual careers came into focus, most notably in the case of the controversial passports for investment scheme.
Introduced in 1984, applicants seeking naturalisation had to make an investment of £1 million per person to the State. The investment had to be for job creation or job maintenance. A substantial residence in Ireland also had to be purchased by the applicant.
However, details of the scheme did not become generally known until 1994, when it emerged that a wealthy Saudi businessman, Khalid Sabih Masri, had earlier invested £1.1 million in C&D Foods in 1992 as part of a citizenship application.
About 11 years earlier the company received a grant of a little over £1 million from the European Economic Community. Ulster Unionist politician John Taylor was displeased, but Mr Reynolds said that Longford was one of the counties designated for such grant aid.
Such a skirmish must seem like distant history now that the company prepares to battle for its very survival. However, it is an indication of how rapidly C&D Foods grew over the years.
The most recent accounts, for 2004, show that its pretax profit rose by 46 per cent to €2.86 million, while its turnover rose to €65.05 million from €58.42 million in 2003. Its sales in the final quarter last year would amount to €100 million if multiplied over the period of a full year.
Albert Reynolds started out in business as a promoter of dances and a dancehall owner. He went into petfood when he saw that remnants from a pork factory he owned in the Coombe in Dublin were being recycled in Britain as petfood.
His son will need all of his business talents to rebuild the firm.