It’s interesting how a business opportunity can suddenly present itself. Take for example brothers Tom and Padraig Hennessy, who ran a business laying water pipes on Irish farms. In the course of their work, the Hennessy brothers noticed how Irish dairy farmers were repeatedly asking them if they had a way to accurately measure mineral rates in water.

“Enough farmers were asking us how could they measure mineral rates in their water systems that we could see there was clearly a market for this type of technology,” says Padraig Hennessy.

“We looked around in New Zealand and Australia to see if there was a product we could import and distribute here in Ireland. But we didn’t see anything that was good enough so we decided to develop our own system,” he adds.

Tom and Padraig Hennessy and staff at Terra Nutritech. \ Jeff Harvey

Seeing this gap in the market, and more importantly the market in the gap, the Hennessy brothers developed their own system to regulate and accurately measure the dosage of minerals that goes into a water system for animals on a farm, be that pig, poultry or cattle farms.

The system, which is plug and play, allows the farmer to accurately regulate the dosage of important minerals such as magnesium, to animals via the existing water system on the farm. And, so, Terra the Nutritech mineral system was born.

Since we first started in 2012, we’ve doubled the size of the business every year

Since it was first established in 2012, Terra Nutritech has gone from strength to strength and is now one of the brightest stars of Ireland’s burgeoning agri-tech sector.

“Since we first started in 2012, we’ve doubled the size of the business every year.

"We really bootstrapped along the way but we’re now self-funding our expansion.

“In the last number of years, we’ve invested over €2m in new offices and a manufacturing site,” says Padraig Hennessy, who is chief executive at the company.

His brother Tom is the chief operations officer for the business.

Export growth

Having established its name and its technology in Ireland over recent years, Terra is now targeting growth from export markets.

Earlier this year, the company was given the opportunity to present at the One conference in Kentucky, which is organised every year by Alltech.

“The One conference in Kentucky gave us huge international exposure. We will open two new export markets by the end of this year on the back of it,” says Hennessy.

While Terra developed its business selling mineral systems to dairy farmers, the company sees future growth potential installing its technology on pig and poultry farms.

A Terra Nutritech mineral system installed on a dairy farm in Ireland.

“We were exhibiting at the Eurotier trade show this year and roughly two-thirds of the enquiries we got were potential customers asking if our system could be used in pig and poultry systems,” says Hennessy.

“The focus on antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is huge right now and farmers have to be way more targeted in their antibiotic usage.

Farming is becoming all about precision, which is creating opportunities for our technology in these sectors,” he adds.

To reduce antibiotic usage in poultry and pig production, farmers are using acidifiers to improve gut health in animals.

However, the farmer still needs to be able to administer these acidifier products at the right dosage, which is where Terra’s technology comes in to play.

Technology

Alongside the growth in new markets, Terra has continued to evolve its mineral dosage systems with new controllers and upgrades.

Last year, the company launched its new mineral dosing system called the Opis Controller at the 2018 Ploughing Championships.

The rollout of this new system has underpinned continued growth in the home market, with Hennessey forecasting the business will achieve 40% to 50% growth in Ireland this year.

Terra also entered its Opis Controller system at the Innovation Arena at last year’s ploughing championships.

The company has since become a client of Enterprise Ireland’s and has worked closely with the state agency over the last nine months.

“We’re a relatively new client of Enterprise Ireland’s but in that time we’ve done a lot of work around sales and strategy training, which I’ve found to be really good,” says Hennessy.

Terra has recently hired a university graduate to join its IT team with Enterprise Ireland funding 50% of the new employees wages over the next two years through its GradStart initiative.

On top of this, says Hennessy, the company has been able to access Enterprise Ireland’s network of international offices and dedicated market research, particularly for markets such as New Zealand where Terra is eyeing new sales opportunities.

Our mentor is someone with past experience of growing a company in international markets

“Enterprise Ireland also paired us with a business mentor from the agribusiness sector here in Ireland.

"Our mentor is someone with past experience of growing a company in international markets and is able to give us some really useful and practical insights into how we can take Terra to the next level,” he adds.

Future

Almost seven years in business, Terra has invested over €2m in a new head office and manufacturing site in Co Kildare and employs 20 people today. In that time, the company has established itself in the Irish market with a brand and product that is well-known to farmers.

However, Terra is now starting to intensify its focus on building export sales, particularly as precision agriculture becomes increasingly important. The company is taking the next steps and looking to larger markets such as France, the US, South Africa and New Zealand and looks set for another wave of growth to take it to the next level.