Lynas eyes further Irish expansion

With turnover by the end of this year likely to top £115m, Lynas Foodservice is focusing on expansion south of the border. Mel Bacon has been talking to LCN.

Perfection – if it’s ever truly achieved – rarely comes about overnight. Time is required to establish the most effective approach and to learn where the key considerations lie within the plethora of information that characterises modern business practice.

Lynas Foodservice – now the largest, family-operated foodservice firm on the island – has put its time to good use. It’s now more than seven decades since Bobby Lynas opened the shutters on a tiny fishmonger’s shop in the northern market town of Coleraine.

He couldn’t have known then that he was taking the first faltering steps in the evolution of a business that now enjoys an annual turnover of over £100m.

These days, Lynas operates a fleet of 85 multi-temperature lorries and makes around 6000 deliveries each week of fresh, frozen and ambient goods to foodservice and retail customers all over the island of Ireland. It also has three Food Outlet cash-and-carry stores in Belfast, Londonderry and Coleraine.

It’s exactly a year since LCN spoke to the firm’s managing director, Andrew Lynas and in that time, the business – which is still headquartered in Coleraine – has delivered a company-wide re-brand and invested around £250,000 in refurbishment and expansion of its Causeway Prime craft butchery operations. The Causeway Prime brand has been so successful in its own right that it now accounts for around £10m of sales each year.

Speaking to LCN earlier this month, head of sales at Lynas, Mel Bacon confirmed that the company had seen double-digit growth in the latter months. He added, however, that any further substantial increases in business would likely be found in newer markets south of the border.

“From our perspective, we now have in place our five-year business plan in which we envisage further growth in NI being a steady climb with bigger percentages of growth coming from business in the south of Ireland,” he explained.

“That’s simply because historically, we’ve been based in Coleraine and the market in NI is fairly mature for us now. But the south of Ireland is new and we do envisage a point where the business that we have in the south will equal what we have in the north. We are always going to be chasing larger markets.”

An investment of more than £2m has been made by the business this year, covering the introduction of new trucks to strengthen the fleet for the all-Ireland logistics operation, an extension to the Causeway Prime craft butchery ,the opening of a new Outlet in Newry and the continued  focus on brand awareness.

Employee numbers have also continued to rise with more than 420 people now working within the business.

“At the moment, the economy seems to be fairly buoyant,” says Mel. “People are taking a lot of stay-at-home vacations, we’re welcoming increased numbers of visitors and the cross-border trade between the Republic and ourselves has been fairly strong since the end of June.”

A significant element of the business is transacted between the euro and sterling zones and Mel concedes that as the pound weakens in the wake of the Brexit vote, the balance in cross-border trade is likely to be affected. The question for him is how the whole issue eventually resolves:

“We have to hope that the politicians do the right thing,” he says. “We don’t want the barriers to go up, we don’t want whatever happens to hamper us in doing our business, that’s the real concern we have at present.”

As for the future, Christmas and the New Year are the immediate priorities, but beyond that, expansion of the group’s successful Outlet network is imminent:

“Our big focus will be the investment in the opening of another Outlet in Newry in November,” says Mel. “At 4000 sq ft, it will be a little smaller compared to what you see in Coleraine and Belfast, but it’s another step towards our aspiration of opening four of these per year going forward as suitable sites become available.”

Ballymena has already been earmarked as the location of the next branch.

With turnover for 2016 estimated at around £115m, the business is continuing to plan for ongoing growth.

“At the end of the day, we follow the trends we see in food,” continues Mel. “We will have more Outlets in operation, we’ll be more retail-conscious and more focused on improving our customer’s needs within the core foodservice business.”