Poultry plant closure marks the end of an era

The Castlemahon Food Products company (owned by O’Kane Poultry) has been an economic hub for the region for more than 40 years, but now the High Court has appointed a liquidator for the company after a long period of unprofitable trading.

This move follows the company’s unsuccessful attempts to restructure or sell the business as a going concern and the withdrawal of banking facilities to support the operations of the business.

Commentators say that the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Investment must develop a plan to create a replacement industry to provide local employment.

The impending closure marks the end of a local industry which had previously employed more than 550 workers and supported an additional 150 farmer suppliers.

A company spokesman said: “The directors of Castlemahon regret today’s actions, but this was unavoidable following sustained substantial losses.”

The liquidator, Kieran Wallace of KPMG told chicken suppliers to Castlemahon yesterday he planned to keep it as a going concern for the next seven to 10 days and review the situation at that point.

The business was producing more than 12 million oven-ready chickens and turkeys a year.