Ready, steady, mix

Based just outside Athenry in County Galway, Esker Readymix continues to go from strength to strength, with environmentally-friendly GGBS cement playing a key role in the venerable firm’s success. Despatch Supervisor Ollie Forde spoke to Irish Trucker.

Esker Readymix boasts exceptional batching plants

There are few companies in Ireland approaching the 60th anniversary of their first shoots of life, but Esker Readymix is one such success story. Current proprietor and managing director Gerry Cannon took over the running of the business from his father James, who had brought the family business into being as a sole trader in 1950. A half century and more down the line, things are still going strong for the Galway firm.

Esker Readymix boasts two key bases just outside Athenry, with the readymix centre situated in Esker and the firm’s wholly-owned limestone quarry located at nearby Moyode, while the company boasts all the desired certification, from the IS EN 206 for standards in concrete production to the ISO 9001 for quality assurance.

Another view of EskerÕs impressive block yard facility

The location of Esker Readymix made it the natural choice as a principal supplier for the major project of the M6 motorway linking Galway, Athenry and Ballinasloe. Indeed, the section between Galway and Ballinasloe, at a length of 55 kilometres, is the longest single section of new motorway in construction anywhere in the country.

On completion, the M6 motorway will be the third-longest motorway in the state and will make the town of Athenry adjacent to a national primary route for the first time. It has also involved a significant degree of work as its route does not follow the path of the original N6 thoroughfare, and Esker Readymix has worked closely with the National Roads Authority every step of the way.
Ollie Forde, Esker Readymix’s Despatch Supervisor, told Irish Trucker: “The M6 has been quite a big project for us for the past couple of years. Construction on the Ballinasloe to Galway section started in March 2008 and it’s due to open in February next year, so all in all it’s a big project. Esker Readymix has been the main supplier of all concrete and bridge structure materials for about three-quarters of that route.”

Esker Readymix has been a leading supplier for the Ballinasloe to Galway N6 development

The vast majority of those materials have comprised the eco-friendly GGBS cement, of which Esker Readymix was the first company in Galway to offer to its clients. With Al Gore, the Kyoto Protocol and carbon footprints all common topics in national and world media, the dangers of environmentally-unfriendly policies have long since been made apparent to the wider public, and the cement industry has courted bad publicity as one of the worst offenders. GGBS, or Ground Granulated Blastfurnace Slag to give its full title, helps to address the balance, with significant reductions in CO2 emissions arising from the use of GGBS in comparison traditional Portland cement.

GGBS has been utilised in several high-profile construction projects in Ireland, notably the Boyne Bridge outside Drogheda, the Lee Tunnel in Cork and the new Aviva Stadium at Lansdowne Road in Dublin. Esker Readymix has also embraced the move towards GGBS – in addition to the green-aware construction of the M6 motorway, Esker-supplied GGBS was also used exclusively in the construction of the 4-star Loughrea Hotel & Spa.

One of the tippers of Esker Readymix

“The way it’s produced and the processes that are used,” says Forde, “make it very environmentally-friendly compared to the normal Portland cement. Duncan Stewart on RTE’s About the House highlighted it a couple of years ago and its usage is definitely growing throughout Ireland. There’s no great variation in price so it’s an attractive product for a lot of prospective builders to use. There are other benefits to GGBS as well – it’s a very strong material with good durability, and that makes it a good product for use in agricultural projects such as slurry-tanks, slatted sheds or silage slabs.”
As a rural company, the agricultural sector forms a large proportion of Esker Readymix’s client-base, and that proportion will be solidified in the near future when work on the M6 project grinds to a halt.

“Agriculture is a big market for us,” says Forde, who has been with Esker Readymix for the past 12 years. “Over the last couple of years a lot of farmers were taking advantage of the grants available in order to carry out improvement works at their farms. Farmers have been regular clients of ours down through the years, I think we’ve formed a good relationship with a lot of people in the agriculture business and we hope that continues into the future.”
The ongoing economic downturn has affected every facet of the country, but the construction industry has undoubtedly been the worst hit. So given that construction is so central to the manufacturers of concrete products, how does Ollie see things going in the future?

Low carbon concrete is one of the key products offered by Esker Readymix

“There are still a couple of motorway projects in the west that may go ahead. You wouldn’t know what would happen with the Western Corridor – you hear different rumours every week – but a lot of money has been spent on it already and it wouldn’t make a whole lot of sense to stop now. There is a road planned from Athenry to Gort, and a Tuam bypass, so if they get the go-ahead we’ll be hoping to play a part in that.”

Forde has seen plenty of changes in his 12 years with Esker Readymix, with the firm now operating its own limestone quarry while Esker’s fleet of vehicles has swelled to a current total of 18. “We now have 11 readymix trucks, four tippers and three block trucks. The readymix batching plant can produce 120 metres an hour no problem and our own quarry is fully operational. The area of road-building has inevitably slowed up as the economy dipped, but we’re fairly confident that our good relationships with our existing customers, including many people within the agricultural sector, will keep things ticking along until the economy picks up again.”