Firm with two factories in Mayo is 'bullish' about growth prospects

Ireland’s largest maker of pallets, the Laois-based company CJ Sheeran, is in expansion mode at its two plants in Mayo to meet demand from exporters.

CJ Sheeran has facilities in Ballinrobe and Ballyhaunis. The latter was acquired two years ago, has approximately 30 employees and supplies a client base of multinational companies as well as some local engineering companies. 

The company’s business development director Fergal Moran, who splits his time between the firm’s Ballinrobe and Ballyhaunis plants, says CJ Sheeran has grown sales revenue and turnover at the Ballyhaunis facility, formerly known as Hazelhill Timber, by 50% since acquisition, creating "a decent quantity of jobs". The company is planning a new biomass boiler for the Ballyhaunis site to power the plant’s timber-drying process.

The Ballinrobe plant is larger, on a five-acre site, and is fully automated. Similar to Ballyhaunis it has an automated kiln drying process. 

“We acquired the Ballinrobe site in 2012 and we’ve been investing since we bought it,” explained Moran. “We purchased two acres next to it and we’re building a warehouse there having also installed new kilns at the site.” 

Demand for pallets suggests Ireland’s exports continue to grow in an uncertain world. As central to world trade as the shipping container which unleashed global trade, the wooden pallet allows containerised goods to be easily loaded and unloaded quickly. Pallets are also a logistical enabler of modern retail and manufacturing.

A new era of trade tension prompted by America, which earlier this year put a 15% tariff on EU goods, hasn’t dented demand for pallets. 

“We haven’t seen any decrease in activity,” said Moran. “Rather the increase in demand from multinationals which may be linked to the rush to get products to the US before the Trump tariffs kicked in… We are very bullish about the future, therefore we’re investing in the business.” 

CJ Sheeran has its own sawmill in Coolrain, Co Laois, but also buys timber for its Mayo plants from ECC Timber Products in Cornamona. After assembly, pallets go through a kiln drying process. The company makes four million pallets per year but also recycles four million for further use. Pallets that can’t be resold are wood chipped to heat hot water that in turn run the kilns which extract moisture from the timber.

“A lot of people we supply put a lot of products on pallets to ship it overseas," explained Moran. "Their products are on pallets so we have to get the moisture out of them. If you don’t dry the pallets, the goods on a long container journey to New Zealand would get moldy, potentially damaging the goods [stacked on them].” 

Founded in 1994, CJ Sheeran has been in expansion mode for the past decade and now has 13 productions sites across Ireland.

“We’ve acquired 15 to 20 companies in the past 12 years,” said Moran. “We’ve invested in every site we bought.” “We plan to keep increasing employment and automation."

Robots will be installed in 2026 at the Ballinrobe plant to automate some of the pallet making process. 

“The labour market is tight, it’s a struggle to get people.” 

Automation won’t prevent the creation of new jobs at CJ Sheeran given strong demand for pallets.

“Robotics will displace one or two jobs, but we also create more jobs,” explained Moran, who instanced several new jobs created recently at the Ballyhaunis plant thanks to a new contract with a North American client.

As for the company’s main raw material, Moran sees an urgency for more tree planting to ensure future supply.

“For the next five to ten or 15 years there’ll be a good supply of timber due to a large amount of conifers planted in the 1980s and '90s. That’s coming on stream now.” 

However, a fall-off in planting since 2019 – something Moran believes was prompted by a bottleneck in the issuance of felling licenses - will, if it continues, tighten supplies of timber for CJ Sheeran 20 years from now. A government target to plant 8,000 hectares of forestry every year has been missed in the past two years, with barely 1,500 hectares planted in 2024.

Moran thinks the situation can be reversed. 

“We have planted 8,000 hectares in the past. We have the best conditions in western Europe for growing coniferous forests fast. They do it in Scotland, we think we can do it here.” 

Moran explained that CJ Sheeran CEO Mark Sheeran is raising this issue with the government. As the recently appointed chairperson of lobby group Forest Industries Ireland, he brought the Minister of State for Forestry Michael Healy Rae to the company’s Laois sawmill along with senior Coillte executives to impress on them the importance of forestry for rural jobs and the need to get planting rates back up.

As the Ballinrobe-based business development manager for the company Moran is busy making new markets for a range of products the acquisition of the Coolrain sawmill has allowed CJ Sheeran to make. Like its Garden Living range of fencing posts and outdoor furniture while also supplying valuable byproducts like wood mulch and bedding for horses. Damage caused by Storm Éowyn earlier this year drove a surge in demand for its fencing materials, explained Moran.

While expanding, CJ Sheeran also wants to lessen the industry’s impact on the planet. A new company initiative called Pallet Loop collects pallets otherwise destined for incineration from construction industry clients.

Also, in the past five years the company has switched to biomass for its energy needs, saving two million litres of diesel. Solar panels added to the factory roofs contribute 25% of power. The car fleet is being switched to electric.

Moran said the company has a number of customers who are “very serious” about climate change.

“It’s something we are very cognisant of. We have been on that train a number of years.”