“At 17 I set myself a plan, with the help of those around me, to become a professional rugby player at 24 or 25,” Munster rugby player Donnacha Ryan told the young farmer conference on Saturday.

Fresh from his victory against Ulster in Raven Hill last night he said: “The motivation for me was to be successful, to look beyond money and see the bigger picture. When you achieve small goals, they give you confidence.”

The managing director and founder of JFC, John Concannon, told the story of his plastics business which originated from his background calf and sheep dealing.

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“I always used to try and feed whatever calves would drink out of the bucket together. It was out of that that I developed the first JFC product,” Concannon said, showing the bucket with three compartments.

Growth

From there the business grew, having a turnover of €18,000 in year one, €50,000 in year two, €150,000 in year three and now selling into 40 different countries with manufacturing facilities in the UK and Poland.

“It’s been a long, tough, hard struggle. The biggest things that impacted were foot and mouth, BSE, 9/11 and I can safely say that Brexit is as big as any of those.”

Introduced to the conference as the man who became famous for showing his revolutionary teat feeder on the Late Late show in the 1980’s, Concannon presented a very down to earth approach to building a business by focusing on a clear vision of where you want to get to.

“Banks are a necessary evil. If they give you money they like to get it back. It doesn’t make a difference if you are in plastics, tillage, dairy or whatever, you have to pay the banks back. Did I make mistakes? Of course I did.”

He said that it’s important to give back to the community as “it’s amazing how it comes round again.” JFC is currently developing an automatic calf feeder that he expects to have available next year.

Meat industry

Concannon compared start-up businesses to examples he has seen in the meat industry. He remembers delivering sheep to Irish Country Meats in Camolin as a teenager when it was just a “three bay hay shed”. He recalled being on holidays in France and hearing that Larry Goodman’s business “had gone to the wall but boy did he recover from that.”

“At the end of the day I’ve built a good solid business that turns a profit at the end of the year,” said the man who left school early but went back to night classes in Galway after he got married and had children.

“The thing that keeps us all going is cashflow and if you don’t have that you have nothing,” he said. He recalled asking his bank manager for an overdraft and was told that he would be better off going around and collecting money off his debtors.

“People are always saying I’ll do it next year, do it now. Put a plan in place with little steps and then you will get there eventually.”