Two young farmers from St Patrick’s Classical School in Navan, Co Meath, scooped the top prize at this year’s Student Enterprise Awards.

Inspired by the wastage of poly drums on their farms, which hold the likes of teat dip, Matthew Kealy and Theo Staunton saw an opportunity to recycle them and make calf feeders and mini meal silos.

The 16-year-olds named their company ‘Barrelda’.

Speaking to Irish Farmers Journal Junior, Theo said they source old barrels for free from local farmers and are able to sell their products for half the price of shop bought ones.

The price of the calf feeder depends on how many teats you want, but the average feeder costs €100, Theo said.

The meal silo retails at €70.

“Over the summer, we plan on making a few new products like medicine storage and all sorts of storage for around the farm.

“We want to take it as far as it goes,” Theo said.

I think I’ll definitely farm part-time

Matthew, who is from a 200-cow dairy farm in Slane, said he hopes to farm at home in the future, but would like to keep Barrelda going also.

Theo is farming beef and sheep with his grandad in Fordstown.

“I think I’ll definitely farm part-time. I’ve always had an interest in it, but I think I’d like to maybe go on and do engineering,” Theo added.

The meal silo costs the students €10 to make and a 10-teat feeder costs €45.

“All the farmers around us have no problem giving them away because they’ve no use for them, apart from maybe a footbath or a bin, so that brings down our costs,” Theo said.

Cost inflation for farmers was also in the back of the duo’s minds when coming up with the idea.

“We said we would try and combat that as much as we can for farmers,” Theo said.