Co Waterford-based food firm Flahavans has capped a successful year by scooping the overall Exporter of the Year Award for 2009.
The food firm which picked up the Irish Exporters Association-sponsored gong at the annual Export Industry Awards dinner at the RDS Concert Hall in Dublin last night.
Based in Kilmacthomas, where it employs 50 people, Flahavans is one of Ireland's oldest family-run businesses, having been established around 1790, and is now the country's only remaining commercial oat mill.
Flahavan's Progress Oatlets, Organic and Quick Oats are the leading porridge oat brands in Ireland and the company which first launched in the UK market in 2003, now sales through leading retailers such as Tesco, Asda, Sainsbury's and Waitrose. The company has also begun to export its oat products to Spain and the USA.
Over the past 12 months the company has embarked upon a large strategic investment plan, committing €1.6 million in capital investment in more energy efficient grain dryers, as well as new storage units with capacity for 4,000 tonnes.
The company's chairman John Flahavan was among the nominees for this year's Ernest & Young Entrepreneur of the Year award while its sales and marketing director John Noonan was recently named by Marketing magazine as its marketer of the year for successfully repositioning the brand and for developing a long-term strategy to compete with leading brands such as Kellogg, Nestlé and Weetabix.
Other winners at the annual IEA awards were Diageo which scooped the Multinational Exporter of the Year gong and biotechnology firm Genzyme which was named Life Science Company of the Year.
