Crust & Crumb rises to the challenge
Rapid expansion for pizza maker with 120 new jobs planned
Few will realise unless told but Crust & Crumb, Ireland’s largest manufacturer of ambient, chilled, and frozen commercial and gluten free dough-based products, has quietly become the single biggest Irish-owned employer in west Cavan.
The revelation comes at a time when the Ballyconnell business is doubling the size of its local production facility, creating 120 new jobs in the process.
Owned by and run by Chief Executive Mark McCaffrey, Crust & Crumb currently employs 282 people, with the extra jobs to be added once construction is complete before year end. The 80,000 sq ft processing site is set to be the newest and most advanced pizza making factory in Europe once fully operational.
The €12.5M investment is, in part, to keep pace with demands set by a new €10M contract signed with Tesco Ireland, expanding the range of products the business already supplies to the retailer to include five new premium pizza varieties.
The partnership with Crust & Crumb began five years ago, when Tesco looked at bringing production of its pizza range to Ireland. Now the multi award-winning local pizza maker currently makes 30 different varieties of pizza for Tesco, reporting a 35% year-on-year volume growth in 2024.
Before Crust & Crumbs’ arrival to Ballyconnell Corporate Park, the empty shells of buildings were a stark reminder of the boom to bust cycle of the Celtic Tiger era. It’s a scenario Mr McCaffrey is all too aware of, and serves as one of several strands to the remarkable success stories that is Crust & Crumb.
In 2018, he took a chance at investing circa €5M, part funded by Enterprise Ireland, to set up a plant in Cavan in a bid to beat Brexit and ensure continued access to EU markets. It has paid off. There is a high percentage chance that the fresh pizza in a shopping trolley at any number of major multiples came from Ballyconnell.
It’s quite the turnaround given that, at one stage after his last business Tenderlean Limited went bust with almost £2m of debts, Mr McCaffrey wasn’t even able to get a mobile phone in his name, and banned from acting as a company director for nine years.
Admittedly, Mr McCaffrey’s “learned” a lot from that period.
The success experienced now wouldn’t taste quite the same without it, he suggests.
Amidst the overwhelming adversity, Mr McCaffrey emerged with a single nugget of inspiration - that pizza is effectively a recession proof food.
I learned when things are going okay, pizza sells okay. When things go bad, people eat more pizza,” he chuckles. “So in my mind the business plan was simple.”
Fast forward to today and Mr McCaffrey points across the road from a plush meeting room to a new unit recently acquired and kitted out with a state-of-the-art R&D kitchen where 15 people busily prep new product development.
"Our plans initially were to get to 80 staff in Ballyconnell over a five-year period,” says Mr McCaffrey of a goal achieved in just 12 months.
“We’re at close to 300 at the moment, and probably 400 in the next year or so.”
Crust & Crumbs’ Fermanagh facilities- two in Derrlylin- supply the UK; while Ballyconnell covers Ireland the Europe. Depending on which way US president Donald Tump’s tariffs are hitting on “any given day”, Crust & Crumb can pivot the direction of supply across the Atlantic where they now also have a presence, with two people employed specifically to crack the highly competitive North American market.
On the horizon too, Mr McCaffrey reveals, is an ambition to one-day set up a new manufacturing facility within Continental Europe to capitalise on ever-increasing demand for product there, which stretches from gluten free, to vegetarian, vegan and even protein infused dough-base.
Mr McCaffrey recently completed a deal to acquire a bread plant in Portadown, specifically for stuffed-crust pizza, adding it to a portfolio that already included nearby garlic bread maker Evron Foods.
Build, buy, or “a bit of both”, the future looks bright for Crust & Crumb.
"We’re already exporting a considerable amount of fresh product to Europe from Ballyconnell, and the more traction we get there, the more realistic it becomes that we’ll need to look at new ways of connecting with clients.
“As for the States, we’ve had two people employed there the past 12 months, working on that. Some days we export from the UK and other days from Ireland, depending on tariffs, but there is a fairly significant market for us to challenge for.”
Mr McCaffrey is understandably “happy” (he won’t go so far as to say “proud”) of where he taken Crust & Crumb to date.
“I’m no where near finished yet. I think the term is ‘positively dissatisfied’. Happy where I’ve got but knowing there’s still more to do,” says Mr McCaffrey who was among invited guests at the Ireland Funds gala dinner in Washington DC back in March.
He believes there are plenty of positives about having a base in rural Cavan and Fermanagh. Visiting retailers for one benefit from a relatively short journey to Dublin or Belfast airports, and also have the luxury of staying at the Slieve Russell Hotel.
“Brexit presented many challenges but also offered great opportunities to home-grown Irish suppliers like ourselves,” shares Mr McCaffrey.
“We’re about five years ahead of the curve in Ballyconnell realistically. What I’ve done all my life is get good at something and stick at it, and then get really good at it, and try be even better. It doesn’t matter if you’re in pizza production or construction, if you set out to do a really good job it’ll stand to you.”