Ireland's largest provider of primary school lunches will double its Tipperary workforce

Deputy Alan Kelly has today welcomed confirmation by The Lunch Bag, Ireland’s largest provider of primary school lunches, that it will double its workforce at its Nenagh headquarters to 500 over the next two years.

Speaking following a meeting with the company, at which he was updated on the project, Deputy Kelly said that the pace of progress at the site and company has been one of Nenagh’s biggest success stories.

The Lunch Bag, which delivers hot meals daily free to children across the country, last year announced a €7.5m expansion at the site where it currently employs 250 staff. But with plans to more than double its existing daily delivery of 100,000 hot school meals to national school children over the coming years, this will now, Deputy Kelly stated, result in a doubling of staff at the Lisbunny site.

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“I fought to get The Lunch Bag to Nenagh five years ago and it is one of the greatest success stories I’ve been fortunate to have been involved in over the years in the constituency. We all love the foreign direct investment coming in and I’ve been privileged to secure that for Nenagh but home-grown Irish business is equally if not more satisfying,” said Deputy Kelly.

The expansion is necessitated by the growth of the Government’s Hot School Meals scheme.

Said CEO Ray Nangle, “Nenagh has been very good to us. We chose it because of the availability of space and because of its accessibility, so close to the motorway network and hugely central location. We’ve been able to hire a great team here but we’ve also got huge support, including from Deputy Kelly.

“I want to thank him for all the support he has given us over the past five years. He’s been instrumental in us coming to Nenagh in the first place and himself and Tipperary County Council have been a great support.”

Managing Director Ger Killian said, “School meals are going to be a fantastic addition to the economy, families and communities. We are so delighted that Alan had the foresight to support us when we came up the idea of school meals a few years ago and to help us be part of bringing that to over half the children of Ireland.

“The very first day he came here, he was straight forward with us. He said he would support us if we supported the area by hiring as many people as we possibly could. We are doing that and it’s having a huge knock-on for the local community. But now we need to go to another level and we’ve no doubt Deputy Kelly and the people of Nenagh and North Tipperary will help us do that.”

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