This article is from page 19 of the 2011-07-26 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 19 JPG
ONE Clare business will have to shelve plans for expansion and others will struggle to make up their losses in the wake of the liquidation of the Superquinn chain.
The stores – including the Limerick branch – were put into liquidation and immediately bought again by Musgraves, but it is unlikely that suppliers owed money will ever see their cash.
Inagh cheese producers St Tola had planned to buy packaging machinery which would allow them to expand the sales of a new product, but the money has been eaten up by the collapse of the supermarket chain.
Siobhan Garvey, who founded the Inagh cheese company, said that while the amount of money which her company is owed by the supermarket may not seem like a lot, it will have a severe impact on St Tola’s plans.
“We had been supplying Superquinn for years and we re-launched with them in the last two months. What we are owed is thousands rather than hundreds of thousands and while it would seem like a small amount to a bigger company, it’s a bad blow for a small operation like ours, especially as this is the second time we’ve taken a hit this year,” she told The Clare People .
Siobhan explained that another outlet went out of business owing them money earlier in the year and this latest blow will severely hamper the company’s plans to expand with a new product.
“Everyone here is working hard and we should be exapnding and taking on more people, but this just knocks us right back. We have a new product, St Tola Cream Divine, which we were packaging by hand until we saw how it would sell. It’s selling well and we had planned to buy machinery to package it so we could increase supply, but that plan has gone out the window now. There are talks going on with Musgraves, but the reality is that it’s very unlikely that small suppliers like us will get their money back.”
Another Clare producer which has been hit is the popular Burren Smokehouse, who supplied their brand to the Limerick and other stores.
Birgitta Heden-Curtin said her company is also owed money and she sees little prospect of getting it back.
“We supplied Superquinn because as a supermarket, it was the right end of the range and we felt that it was the kind of place our products could feature. Our supplies to them were realtively small but no company, particularly a small concern, can afford to lose out like this,” she said.