Teamwork took JFC to the top

NO ONE person is responsible for the phenomenal success of the JFC plastics manufacturing firm in Ireland, the UK, Europe and further afield. That's the self-effacing comment of founder and managing director John Concannon.

He has seen the firm grow from a team of two in 1987, himself and wife Patricia, to now employing 250 in Tuam, the UK, Poland and Holland – with 50 more jobs in the pipeline in 2018.
As JFC celebrates its 30th anniversary this Friday he is justifiably proud of the way that teamwork has taken the company to the top.
“There was only Patricia and myself at the start when I had a few crazy ideas. Later my brother Colm came on board and about a year later Brendan Morrin.
“Probably the multi-bucket, which helped launch us, was one of the crazy ideas but I failed miserably in my first attempts to develop this product. So I tried to learn something about marketing and selling,” he says.
While he admits that his invention of a plastic multi-bucket which enables one person to feed six calves at the same time was “the product that got the company off the ground” he still smiles about it being laughed off the screens on the Late Late Show 30 years ago.

Read the full feature in this week's edition of The Tuam Herald