John O’Connell of West Cork Distillers in Skibbereen, Co Cork. Photo: Daragh Mc Sweeney/Provision
West Cork Distillers has invested €15m in a major expansion of its distillery in Skibbereen, Co Cork, as it expects to report record results for 2023.
Speaking with the Sunday Independent, John O’Connell, a co-founder and director of West Cork Distillers, said the company’s expansion at the distillery would provide it with a capacity to produce almost 22.5 million litres of pure alcohol. The growth has helped the business add another 50 jobs in the past year.
O’Connell, who co-founded the whiskey, gin and vodka-producing firm alongside friends Denis and Ger McCarthy in 2003, said the expansion was exclusively for whiskey production as demand grows across its branded and white label businesses. Its West Cork Whiskey brand is growing at around 60pc year-on-year, with the white label part of the group also gaining traction.
“We are seeing a lot of growth in Asia and America is in good growth too,” O’Connell said. “Eastern Europe is performing well, obviously with the exception of Russia.
“At West Cork, we just take it day by day. We just increase to match market demand. It is very organic.”
O’Connell said the expansion was close to being fully completed and was currently going through commissioning. He hopes to have it fully up and running by mid-January.
West Cork Distillers recently released its financial results for last year, showing the company recorded sales of over €51.7m, down slightly from €54.2m the previous year. The business also recorded a fall in profit, which went from €3.8m to almost €893,000.
However, earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortisation (ebitda) was almost €9.3m. It employed a monthly average of 114 staff across 2022.
On the company’s results for 2022, O’Connell said branded and new-make alcohol sales went “really well”, but there had been a dip in the hard seltzer ingredient part of the business.
“We would see that rebounding strongly in 2024,” he said.
He said depreciation and capital expenditure were drivers of the lower profit.
According to O’Connell, the branded business, new-make sales and a rebound in its ingredients business helped to drive the performance this year.
In the year ahead, O’Connell is expecting a 30pc growth in turnover and ebitda. He said the ingredients part of the firm and Asia were both areas “we are very excited about” for 2024.
