The world of happy herbs

O’HANLON HERBS I PROFILE

O’Hanlon Herbs has transitioned from a small market garden operation to one of Ireland’s leading herb suppliers to multiple retailers. At its heart remains its visionary owner and Managing Director, Tom O’Hanlon, a passionate advocate for horticulture and doing it right, sustainably. Profile by Andy Probert.

Fresh out of college, a young Tom O’Hanlon was looking to create a bit of extra income for himself so he decided to use his knack of growing plants by setting up a small market garden in his small suburban garden.

More than three decades on, he oversees O’Hanlon Herbs, a 16 acre operation, producing over 5 million potted herbs and in excess of 5 million cut herb packets per year. And all supplied to Ireland’s leading retailers and independent stores.

“No farming heritage, no family horticulture history, no formal background in planting, and no grand vision,” reflected Mr O’Hanlon on his first tentative steps starting in 1988.

Business success

“I was just a suburban Dubliner who liked planting and growing. The first few years, I was just messing around. I was just a youngster. But I had a germ of an idea to make a micro-herb garden because I had an instinct there was a market opportunity.”

Over time, he has ridden that instinct, gradually upping the ante of the business, buying a plot of land in Glenealy, in neighbouring County Wicklow, where O’Hanlon Herbs continues to flourish.

The lion’s share of production is geared towards basil, coriander and parsley, as well as mint, rosemary, chive, thyme, and dill. There are ambitions to venture into Thai basil and diversify into a living lettuce range for the living greens sector.

But he remains relatively matter-of-fact about his success: “We got a supermarket contract; it was a bit primitive, packing a few herbs, buying from some producers. I grew pots in season. The deal was to set up some tunnels. It was a seasonal business and packing other people’s product lines. And we remained like that for years.”

Then two external influences fuelled the business boom.

“The arrival of Tesco to Ireland in the 1990s was a big sea change, as they brought knowledge and experience from the fresh herb trade from a more mature UK market,” he acknowledged. “And secondly, TV cooking programmes, most notably Jamie Oliver on Channel 4, among others, offered us a huge boost as he was such an herb aficionado,” pinpointed Mr O’Hanlon.

People expanded their cooking knowledge by travelling abroad and the internet took off. “All these things played into greater fresh herb usage in the kitchen to the point in 2008 things got pretty serious. The question was whether we wanted to invest properly in the business and become a year-round operator, or remain as a market gardener.”

He opted to do the latter, investing in a 2,500 sqm glasshouse, built to scale for market demand.

“We expanded again in 2012 and 2015. We have recently expanded again, and have just over 12,000 sqm of glasshouse of significant production.”

The company also has an herb packhouse that covers the total herb category for the supermarkets. It can pack local products in season and import herbs out of season.

“We have ambitions to grow our cut herbs, but we have tended to specialise in pot herbs,” Mr O’Hanlon remarked. “We hope to take on more local production as we have some spare acreage.”

Expansion plans

O’Hanlon Herbs currently produces 80,000 pots per week, and according to the company’s owner, the market has potential to get that to 100,000 to 110,000 pots per week in 2022.

“As an expanding business, we are also looking into greater automation, mechanising processes and more operational efficiencies,” he said. The company presently

O’HANLON HERBS I PROFILE

employs around 100 people and takes on an extra 40 during peak seasonal times.

Mr O’Hanlon said: “There was a massive leap in demand in the pandemic, being driven by at-home cooking. While the business enjoyed single-digit annual growth in 2020, demand simply outstripped supply. That was a relative one-off phenomenon above and beyond the capacity of the business.

“Once finalised, we expect 2021 to be an improvement over 2019, and we are aiming to grow the business, diversify further and improve our service all round.”

An exciting development will be the transition away from sodium to LED lighting for the glasshouses.

“With LED, we expect a fundamentally superior product,” asserted Mr O’Hanlon. “From trials and other grower reports, LED gives the herb a better leaf structure, better shelf life and a better flavour profile. Therefore, improved production.”

Sustainable through and through

The knock-on effect, noted the Managing Director, will mean fungicides for basil mildew disease will no longer be needed, as the combination of better airflow and LED will deal with that through an overall better environment and micro climate.

“It will mean, ostensibly, we will have reduced need for treatments which we aim to reduce by 100%. That will be good for food traceability and one less critical control process on-site,” he added.

LED will be first installed in one glasshouse and eventually be rolled out to the entire structure in due course.

Another innovation aimed at customers who struggle maintaining living herbs at home, is a self-watering herb planter designed exclusively by Boskke for O’Hanlon Herbs. It allows you to top up a water reservoir every week or so, with the planter keeping the herbs perfectly watered with no fuss. This is available online and through direct-to-consumer shows such as the Bloom festival held every year in Dublin

He added: “Looking ahead, the company wants to make the expansion successful, prime future investments on-site to help us become best in class, and continue what we’re good at doing.”

The company is highly committed to sustainability, including being a member

O’HANLON HERBS I PROFILE

of Origin Green, Ireland’s pioneering, and the world’s only national food and drink sustainability programme. It unites government, the private sector and the entire supply chain, enabling the industry to set and achieve measurable sustainability targets that respect the environment and serve local communities more effectively.

O’Hanlon Herbs has developed several sustainability projects, such as enabling its state-of-the-art glasshouses to harvest rainwater stored in harvest tanks on site. This allows them to minimise the impact on local water sources.

On the energy front, the company has replaced an oil-based heating system by installing a woodchip burner – supporting local woodchip producers and reducing the company’s environmental impact in one fell swoop . The business has also converted much of its packaging to compostable and recyclable, with its pots also now 100% recyclable.

“On top of this, 75% of the pots that leave us are either recyclable or compostable sleeves; this figure was 0% before 2019,” commented Mr O’Hanlon. “We are very proud of our progress and constantly aim to improve all aspects of sustainability.”

Citing labour costs and retention, supply chain, and quality of service in the post-pandemic era as current challenges, Mr O’Hanlon said he is overcoming these obstacles through a combination of investing heavily on-site, and constantly striving to keep on top of everything.

“It is still a niche business; we’ve become quite specialist and are in a good position. We just have to ensure that we don’t drop the ball and rest on our laurels to ensure our herbs are always top quality and customer service is at its best.

He concluded: “Looking back, it’s been quite a journey. It can be quite a rollercoaster ride, and has moved well beyond a hobby. The only way now is forward and upwards as the sector expands and matures.” n