Canada’s largest producer of alcohol and fuel ethanol announced its intention to establish a new EU manufacturing headquarters in Portlaoise last week.

In Canada, farmers supply the company with corn, which is used to produce ethanol and CO2.

Intentions

While Greenfield Global has no intentions to produce ethanol in Ireland at the moment, Ireland manager Ken Finnegan said that it has not been ruled out for the future.

“At this point in time there are no plans to go down that route in Ireland. BUt we are not ruling it out,” Finnegan told the Irish Farmers Journal.

“An important trigger point for the move to Ireland was CETA (EU-Canada Comprehensive Economic Trade Agreement), allowing us to ship ethanol to Portlaoise in isotankers.”

The new 3,800 sq metre manufacturing headquarters in Portlaoise will be constructed on the IDA Ireland Business and Technology Park

Greenfield Global Inc is based in Toronto, Canada, but has operations in 12 locations across North America.

This is its first foray into the European market.

The company manufactures products for the pharmaceutical, nutraceutical, life science, personal care and food, flavour and fragrance markets in over 50 countries.

The new 3,800 sq metre manufacturing headquarters in Portlaoise will be constructed on the IDA Ireland Business and Technology Park and is expected to be operational in Q2 2020.

An estimated 100 jobs are expected to be created during the construction and fit-out phase of the project.

The business itself is expected to create 75 jobs over the next five years in production, quality, supply chain and sales roles.

“Our commitment to building a world-class GMP manufacturing facility in Portlaoise is our first foray into manufacturing outside of North America,” said Greenfield president and CEO Howard Field.

“This facility will ensure we have the capacity to meet increased demand from our life science customers throughout Europe and the region.”

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