Case Study: Nature's Best

Countries Involved: Ireland, France

Nature’s Best is the leading Irish producer of vegetable based chilled convenience foods. The company was founded in 1987 by Paddy Callaghan and quickly developed a reputation for innovation in the fresh vegetables and salads market. It currently employs 210 people in a state of the art factory in Drogheda, County Louth.

The company became aware from its market research that extended shelf life was critical for profitability. It instigated an R&D programme to identify technology requirements and started to look for technology in the fresh foods area. Enterprise Ireland’s TechSearch programme helped the company find the technology it needed in France through CRITT, one of its technology transfer partners.

The company identified was Scalime whose founder Emile Ryckeboer had developed gas flushed packaging technology whereby lettuces are placed in a modified atmosphere and packed in special materials. This puts the products into a state of hibernation and extends the shelf life to 8 or 9 days with no deterioration in quality. The company licensed-in technology and transferred the know-how to their production operation in Drogheda. The extensive know-how involved working with certain gases, packaging materials and production equipment.

Enterprise Ireland assisted in the negotiations leading to a licensing agreement between the two companies. By knowing the licensing process they were able to advise on the things to watch and what to put in place, such as a training programme for Nature’s Best staff by the licensor. Around the same time the managing director, Paddy Callaghan participated in the Enterprise Ireland sponsored R&D Management programme in MIT which included the “open innovation” agenda, sourcing products and technologies from outside the firm.

The licence deal was a five year agreement on know-how transfer paid for by a downpayment and royalties. This was subsequently extended. An engineer from Scalime worked with Nature’s Best for twelve months under their technical assistance agreement.

The company believes it received many benefits from the agreement but that it is important to have a clear set of objectives before entering such a deal. They were able to introduce new chilled convenience products and extend their market and now cover the 32 counties of Ireland. They now supply a wide range including bagged salads, bowl salads, protein salads, prepared vegetables and snack products.