20 minutes with John Murphy, Murphy Concrete Products

Lorcan Allen speaks to John Murphy, managing director of Wexford-based Murphy Concrete Products, on the latest expansion of the business and the mood amongst farmer customers.

Lorcan Allen

13 March 2019

20 minutes with John Murphy, Murphy Concrete Products

John Murphy, managing director of Murphy Concrete Products, Enniscorthy

How important is agriculture for your business?Agriculture accounts for between 75% and 80% of our business. When we started this business in 2009, it was built around products for farmers. We now manufacture septic tanks and some bespoke concrete products but the majority of the products we manufacture are still for farmers, such as our range of drinking troughs, feed troughs and silage walls. Probably 80% of our farmer customers would be dairy farmers.

How important is agriculture for your business?

Agriculture accounts for between 75% and 80% of our business. When we started this business in 2009, it was built around products for farmers. We now manufacture septic tanks and some bespoke concrete products but the majority of the products we manufacture are still for farmers, such as our range of drinking troughs, feed troughs and silage walls. Probably 80% of our farmer customers would be dairy farmers.

What is your best-selling product?

Our drinking trough is our flagship product. We’ve a lot of repeat customers who would come back every year to buy five or six new drinking troughs to replace plastic troughs or upgrade the size of smaller troughs. The TAMS grants have also helped business, particularly for tillage farmers putting in walls for grain silos.

When is the busiest period for your business?

We’re generally always kept busy but there is an element of seasonality to sales of drinking troughs, which typically runs from mid-March to September/October, depending on the autumn. The demand for silage walls comes in bursts as the silage season comes around with farmers getting on the phone to us when they suddenly realise they’re cutting silage in a couple of weeks. We’ve seen a lot of demand for silage walls from farmers looking to extend their silage pit. Most dairy farmers have more cows since the end of quotas and the demand for feed has increased. This has seen the need to stockpile more silage every winter.

Has your business grown alongside the expansion of the dairy sector?

We’ve definitely seen the expansion in the dairy sector feed through into our business. In the lead-up to the end of quotas, Cork was by far the busiest county for us as farmers prepared to expand. But since the quotas went in 2015, we’ve seen a lot of demand from farmer customers in Wexford and Meath in particular. Those are two areas where there has traditionally been a lot of grain growers but we’re seeing a lot of acres being turned back into grass for dairy farming.

What’s the mood of your farmer customers right now?

Speaking to farmers at the moment I would say most are happy enough because the base milk price is good, particularly after the drought last year. Money is a bit tight for some and there’s a little bit of fear around what Brexit may bring but farmers are very resilient.

Why have you recently moved production facility?

This month, we’ve moved into the old Boortmalt site outside of Enniscorthy, which is a big expansion for this business. We’ve moved from having 7,500sq ft of factory floor space at our old site to over 20,000sq ft at the old Boortmalt site with potential for more. The new facility is on a 5ac site, which has an existing weighbridge and office block, as well as a lot more space for stock.