Name: Ciarán Sweeney

From: Knockbridge, Co Louth

Position: General manager of Fyffes ripening & distribution centre

Age: 25

Degree: Food and Agribusiness Management UCD

"I’m a bit of a banana freak,” says Ciarán Sweeney. “One of the first things I do when I go on holidays is find the nearest supermarket to look at the banana display, particularly when we go shopping, something which my girlfriend absolutely detests.”

This might be because at the ripe young age of 25, Ciarán is general manager of Fyffes ripening and distribution centre in Swords, Co Dublin. When Country Living met Ciarán two weeks ago, he was visibly relieved because the visit by the president of Mozambique to the Fyffes plant (which he had overseen) had just concluded without a hitch.

“The president was very, very interested in the Fyffes story,” notes Ciarán. This makes perfect sense, because Fyffes is Europe’s largest importer of bananas and Mozambique grows a lot of bananas.

Headquartered in Dublin, Fyffes has operations in Europe, the US, China and Central and South America, employing 2,532 people full-time and 10,000 seasonally.

Fyffes is the number one banana company in Europe and is soon to be the largest banana company in the world, as the final details of a merger with Chiquita are currently being hammered out.

In Europe, Fyffes ranks number three in the pineapple market while in the USA, Fyffes occupies number one market position for melons and number three for pineapples.

Fyffes story

Fyffes began life in 1888 in the UK, and was then bought over by an American company, United Brands. Ireland eventually became home to this huge company thanks to the initiative and drive of the current chairman David McCann’s grandfather Charles, who in 1902 opened a fruit and vegetable shop in Dundalk.

He became the agent for Fyffes bananas in Ireland and began to import bananas to the Irish marketplace. Charles’ son Neill joined the business in 1948 and radicalised the whole supply of all fresh produce within the Irish market. United Brands was bought out by Fruit Importers of Ireland in 1986, a company fronted by Neil McCann. Fruit Importers of Ireland then changed its name to Fyffes and Fyffes now called Ireland home.

Ciarán is responsible for the ripening and distribution of bananas in the Irish market. From a tillage farm near Dundalk in Co Louth, where his family grows winter and spring barley, Ciarán says he was always very interested in food production, but even when he went to study food and agribusiness management in UCD, he never envisioned he would become a banana man. Rather, he thought he’d have “a bit more of a normal role, if you can define what is normal, working as a sales rep, possibly in a chemical company, or with Teagasc”.

Graduate programme

When a work placement with Bord Bia in his third year of college sparked an interest in horticultural production, Ciarán applied for the Fyffes graduate programme, and got it.

His initial stint involved 14 months in Central America working in Costa Rica, Panama and Belize, in both banana and pineapple production. There he gained experience in all elements of production, from planting to agronomy to harvesting, to quality control and shipping.

Ciarán says Central America was a fantastic experience, but “very, very challenging” when he went out first, particularly because he had no Spanish. Out on the farms, he had no option but to learn the language “or I would have gone hungry – and I don’t like going hungry”.

Ciarán then worked in a ripening site in Coventry, England, and later returned to Dundalk where he learned about sales and marketing within the Irish marketplace.

While pineapples and melons come into the country more or less ready to eat, it’s a different story with bananas; these are ripened on site in Swords – a task that requires very specific expertise.

The Swords plant has a team of four banana ripeners, headed up by a ripening manager.

“They’re going into their ripening room every single day, looking at the product, looking at when we expect to use it against a sales forecast, and then they’re making adjustments in the temperature based on where we are,” explains Ciarán.

“It’s very, very visual and there’s a lot of experience required because every banana reacts differently – even bananas in different boxes react differently.”

Eighteen different banana products come into Swords green, and 26 go out yellow. This may sound excessive, but Ciarán explains that every supermarket wants “a different size, different bag, and has a unique colour specification”.

The fact that the banana is one of the top-selling items in a supermarkets may explain why they’re so fussy.

“They have to get their bananas right,” remarks Ciarán.

Supply chain

Fyffes’ supply chain begins in Central America with nine months of growing followed by two weeks of shipping and then six days of ripening in Ireland – all to be on shelf for two days in the supermarket.

“It’s a journey of 5,000 miles but it’s the last 50 metres that are the most difficult,” says Ciarán.

“We have control of supply chain from beginning to end, and we’ve fine-tuned all those steps, but once they go on the supermarket shelf, it’s out of our hands. We say bananas should be treated like eggs but often they are treated in the opposite way, leading to a display with bruised produce which is definitely frustrating.”

Does Ciarán eat many bananas?

“I do absolutely. I would have to when I look at about six million of them a day.”