The Kings of storage

Many companies often like to branch out into other areas of business to help supplement their income, but not many can rival the Terry King Group. Based in Dunleer, Co. Louth, the storage company are expanding by the year and director Barry King tells Irish Trucker how they have grown into such a huge business over the years.

Terry King has built up a successful business over the years

It all began in 1978 when Terry King purchased some land in Dunleer and the rest they say is history. At present, the Terry King Group has four main lines of trading. Drumcar Feeds Ltd. deals with cereals and animal feeds, Flagstaff Stock Farms Ltd., T/A Kingcoal deals with solid fuels, Terry King Farms looks after the farming end of the group. The primary activity of the group, Terry King Storage deals with the storage of bulk animal feeds and warehousing.

"Business is really good at the moment," said Barry. "Things really took off in 1997 when the storage units began to fill up. Ever since, we have been expanding and we have built about four units a year. We currently employ about 16 people, depending on the time of year."
Flagstaff Stock Farms Ltd., T/A Kingcoal have been trading since the eighties and have outlets in both Dunleer and Newry. Kingcoal imports it coal through local ports and transports it to Dunleer. It is then packaged by two state of the art bagging plants and supplied to both the retail and wholesale markets in Louth, Meath, Dublin and Northern Ireland. As quality is of the utmost importance, coal is handpicked from countries such as Columbia, America and Poland before being shipped to Ireland.

Ronnie Lawlor and Caroline Johnston hard at work in the office

The coal market has recently seen a significant shift in trend towards smokeless fuel, mainly due to the introduction of smokeless zones in Dundalk, Drogheda, Dublin and Newry. Kingcoal has introduced smokeless products such as Fireblend, Calco and Anthracite to meet this demand.
Kingcoal prides itself on its prompt delivery service and guarantees a next day delivery service to all its customers. Kingcoal's wide range of delivery vehicles means that no matter what size of delivery, from its minimum 5-bag order to a lorry load, Kingcoal will not be outdone.

Kingcoal has earned a reputation for service and quality. Despite the ever growing trend towards gas and oil, Kingcoals' tonnage has consistently increased year by year and the company hopes that the future brings even further success," added Barry.
Drumcar Feeds is situated at Drumcar, Dunleer and has been in operation for over 20 years. Primarily a grain merchant business, most of the grain processed by Drumcar Feeds is grown locally and Terry Kings' reputation as an honest and fair dealer is well known in the area.

Some of the machinery at work in Terry King stores

Local farmers supply about 90% of the grain processed on the premises at Drumcar, where it is weighed, quality tested, dried and processed. Last year Drumcar Feeds processed over 12000 ton of cereal including grain grown on Terry's own farm of about 500 acres.
Over 30000 ton of storage is available for cereal at the Drumcar premises, 4500 ton of which is equipped with under floor aeration facilities.
"The Group recently purchased a new state of the art continuous flow grain drier that is capable of drying up to 30 ton an hour and the company is currently considering drying grain for other merchants on a contract basis. Rolling/bruising facilities are also available," he said.
Terry King Storage deals with the storage of Bulk Animal Feeds and Fertilizer as well as warehousing. Terry currently has three yards in operation, Drumcar, Edentubber and a newly opened store in Belfast.

All three yards have been inspected and approved by IGAS, the Dept of Agriculture and the NIGTA. This is essential in the animal feed industry and ensures that mills from either the north or south of Ireland can collect material from their choice of store. The stores have also recently been approved for the handling of Cert ID material. Cert ID is a non-GM scheme, which guarantees trace ability in the food chain.
Terry King Storage is one of the biggest storage operators in Ireland with a combined storage capacity of 130,000m/ton between the three yards. This vast capacity enables a high turnover in tonnage. Terry's main storage customer is Cefetra Ltd, a Dutch company, who are one of the largest feed brokers in the industry among other customers.

Terry King farms are presently farming approx 500 acres of arable land. All the land is used for farming cereal crops, mainly wheat, barley, and oats. Apart from spraying which is carried out by a contractor, almost all work such as ploughing, sewing and combining is carried out by Terry’s sons, Barry and Aaron, who is also a director of the company.
"The farm is made up four plots, based in Drumcar, Tullyesker, Hill of Rath and Collon, all of which are in county Louth. The farm has seen major changeovers the past 2-3 years due to several factors," revealed Barry.

The new Drogheda bypass runs through Terry’s land at the Hill of Rath and 30 acres of his land at Tullyesker has been turned into a quarry (which supplied stone to the same bypass). The farm at Drumcar has also been reduced due to the expansion of his storage facilities. Produce from the farm is sold directly to Drumcar Feeds Ltd., where it is then dried and sent to the mill.
"We have just recently bought a 30 acre site in Castlebellingham, where we intend to build industrial units and sell them off. We are also looking to store timber in some of the units as we expand the business," added Barry.

Overall, times are good for the Louth-based business and if expansion is the way forward then the Terry King Group is at the forefront of their field. The storage units that the company have are a credit to them and this is why many businesses sent their products to the facilities.