A MAJOR expansion into Britain and mainland Europe will see Ireland's sole surviving hard-boiled sweet manufacturer Crilco Confections in Newry double its workforce to more than 40.
And the family-run firm behind old favourites like pear drops, cola cubes, clove rock and bulls' eyes says it is also on schedule to grow its turnover to £10 million by 2022 as it targets far-shore markets in China, Australia and Dubai.
Crilco Confections, started by Peter Crilly (71) in 1974 and still based in the original premises at Flagstaff Road, has also signed off on a lucrative contract to supply own-brand sweets to B&M Bargains outlets across the UK and Ireland, where it has 600 stores and employs 28,000 staff.
It has recently also won contracts with B&M sister companies Babou in France (100 shops) and Jawoll in Germany (90 shops).
And Crilco, trading as Crillys Sweets, is understood to be in the final stages of confirming another significant deal with another major UK multinational chain which has more than 400 stores.
The company, which still uses the old traditional methods of mixing sugar and glucose and adding acid and flavours, currently produces 50,000 bags of sweets every day, which equates to a million bags a month.
"With Brexit lurking, we're endeavouring to change the geography of our supply chain and not become so reliant on the Republic of Ireland and therefore the EU," director David Crilly told the Irish News.
"At one stage 70 per cent of our business was in the Republic. Now our entire EU-wide business is just 40 per cent compared with 60 per cent in the UK and rest of the world.
"These are interesting times for us. We set ourselves a big target in our 2016 business plan which we called 'Crillys 22', where we had included increasing sales from £3 million at that time to £10 million in 2022.
"And we are well on target, with forecasts for 2019 of hitting £6 million."
Crilco says it is reaping the rewards of a recent £3 million investment in new high-speed machinery to facilitate production on a much grander scale.
"For old-fashioned sweet producers, we're as advanced as you can possibly get in sweet production," David added.
