Increased sales growth at Finnebrogue Artisan is on the cards following the opening of a new processing facility near Downpatrick, members of the Northern Ireland Institute of Agricultural Science (NIIAS) were told during a recent visit.

Finance director of Finnebrogue Artisan Andrew Ware said that the company has a turnover of £55m and hopes to double this in the incoming years.

“The new £25m building covers 166,000 square feet and is currently operating at 36% capacity. This means we can grow the business to a turnover of around £140m without having to expand this building,” Ware said.

The company specialises in supplying premium food products to supermarket chains and restaurants. The main products include sausages, burgers, stuffing, venison and Wagyu steaks sold to customers such as Marks and Spencer, Asda, Waitrose, Aldi and Tesco.

“We don’t view ourselves as meat processors. We aim to develop and deliver the best product on the market. For our sausages, for example, we buy in pork shoulder, belly trim and fat from Karro Food Group and also from the Tulip Food Company based in Denmark,” Ware said.

Finnebrogue Artisan was established by Co Down businessman Denis Lynn in the early 1990s to process venison produced on the adjoining 580-acre estate. This led to the development of the Oisin Venision brand.

Widening the mix of food products processed since then means that venison now accounts for only a small proportion of turnover. Last year, venison accounted for £600,000 worth of sales, or 1.2% of turnover at the 330 employee company.

A herd of 600 breeding red deer still run on the 580-acre Finnebrogue estate with some venison imported from New Zealand by the company to meet additional market demand.

Farm manager Mark Sandford told NIIAS members that the hinds (female deer) started calving in early May, with calving season now complete.

During the winter and up to calving, hinds stay outside at grass with access to a forested area and are fed silage as a supplementary feed.

Calves are weaned after four months and are housed for the first winter with access to both slats and straw-bedding and are fed silage and 2kg of concentrates.“Deer are the closest you get to wild animal. They are very easily stressed especially if on their own. They tend to stay reasonably calm if they are in at least pairs when in enclosed spaces,” Mark said.

Stags are the first to be slaughtered from the following August to early October at approximately 65kg carcase weight. Hinds are slower to finish, killing out at 55kg carcase weight over the winter to meet market demand.

The deer are slaughtered in an abattoir on the estate, separate to the new processing facility. Mark said that there are only two abattoirs in Ireland licensed to kill deer and slaughtering on farm reduces stress levels in the deer.

A Wagyu beef enterprise is also in the initial stages of development on the farm with the aim of producing 20 to 25 Wagyu beef cattle annually for restaurant outlets.