Omagh’s Nestlé factory powered decades of employment

As the darker nights of autumn make us appreciate a nice hot drink, there’s a good chance we’ll be enjoying one produced by Nestlé, the world’s largest food and beverage company.

For 60 years, Nestlé was a major employer in the Omagh district, operating a large milk processing factory on the Beltany Road that became a distinctive landmark of the local landscape.

Founded in 1866 as a condensed milk operation under Anglo-Swiss Company, Nestlé evolved after merging with Henri Nestlé’s successful baby food business.

Despite facing challenges from World War I and the Great Depression, Nestlé thrived, and by World War II, it set its sights on Omagh.

However, the establishment of the factory in 1942 faced local opposition, particularly from farmers concerned about the impact on smaller local businesses.

Their fears were realised when seven Tyrone milk processing factories, some operating for over 40 years, closed after Nestlé’s arrival.

However, Nestlé took on their milk suppliers, and, for decades afterwards, the company purchased milk from local farmers to be made into milk powder.

This powder then left Omagh to travel overseas to other Nestlé plants where the powder was processed into different milk products.

In 1946, just four years after arriving in the town, conflict arose within the Omagh factory when management banned unapproved workers’ unions.

This decision led to protests and a walkout, which ended after seven weeks when the factory rehired the workers and added new staff.

In the years that followed, the factory faced more layoffs, particularly in the late 1950s due to post-Korean War export challenges when 97 workers were let go.

Accidents also occurred, most notably in 1960, when Patrick McGurk and two other engineers were severely injured by an exploding brine compressor.

McGurk lost an eye, leading to a £5,000 compensation payout.

By the early 1980s, Nestlé began scaling back its operations in Omagh, with layoffs becoming a regular occurrence.

In 1981, the company announced it would reduce production to just powdered milk, which led to the 400-strong workforce being halved.

Local officials criticised the move as ‘typical of multinational corporations chasing profit at the expense of local workers’.

Two years later, a local magazine called ‘Grassroots’, published by the Omagh Community Development Project, claimed that Nestlé were beginning to wind up operations in Omagh after moving machinery out to England, and opening new factories in Spain and Greece.

However, the manager of the Omagh Nestlé plant, Richard Andrew said the claims were a ‘load of baloney’ and ‘completely unfounded’.

In 1996, two new milk silos, costing £2.5 million, were erected in a move by Nestlé to reinforce their commitment to the local community.

But the factory was hit hard by the BSE crisis in 1999, when it laid off 37 workers, and then the Foot and Mouth livestock disease crisis in the early 2000s.

In 2002, Nestlé’s Omagh operations officially ended following a sale to Lakeland Dairy. Yet, just two years later, Lakeland shut down the factory completely, leaving the site abandoned for over a decade.

In recent years, the old Nestlé factory found a new lease of life when Donnell & Ellis Heavy Haulage Ltd took over the site, renovating it and making it their permanent home.