It was springtime 1995 when Stuart Cowan from Hampshire, who just recently retired as raw material controller for BOCM Silcock UK, was asked to go to Ireland by Mr Gilsinen the then owner of Schils BV Netherlands to pioneer sales of milk powder in Ireland. Robert and Marion Mollan were running a small grocery and animal feeds store outside Keady Armagh at this time and Robert was also a dairy farmer and took a special interest in calf rearing. When Stuart Cowen met up with him and explained the research and development of Schils calf milk powder range it sparked a lot of interest from Robert.
In April 1995 Robert took his first delivery of two pallets of Novilac W Calf Milk Replacer and immediately introduced it to his newborn calves on his farm. This milk replacer was different from anything he had used before such as the ease of mixing the product and the creamy smell of the powder. It didn’t take long for Robert to start to really notice the performance in the calves with larger quantities of concentrates consumed, higher daily live weight gain and far healthier calves with a real shine in their coat with less digestive upsets.
With his newfound confidence in the product Robert started to stock and sell Novilac W from his store to local farmers in Co Armagh. Word of mouth started to spread as local farmers were also obtaining profound results in their calf rearing using the Novilac W. When customers were starting to come from further afield to buy the Novilac W this is when Robert and Marion felt that they had a great product on their hands and should try and build a wider platform for farmers to access the product.
With the large interest in the Novilac W, Robert got his first orders from local merchants John Woods Madden, John Bell Keady and SAFE Fuels Keady who started to stock the product in May of 1995.
After detailed discussions with Stuart Cowan and Schils BV Robert and Marion took a conscious decision to test the market, so they purchased a caravan and started to go to every county show across all of Northern Ireland with the first show in Ballymena in May 1995 and it was during this time that they started to strike up many relationships with farmers and merchants usually over a friendly cup of tea and a scone!
This lead to many more merchants stocking the product not only in Northern Ireland but also in the Republic of Ireland. It was at this stage that the Eringold brand was born incorporating all the benefits of the Novilac W but also including many other components which are beneficial to calf rearing in the UK and Irish Market.
Eringold Super was the first product developed, followed shortly after
by the Eringold Extra. Eringold OXI has been added in recent years to fight the ongoing issue on farm with pneumonia.
Novilam Lamb Milk Replacer has been a hugely successful product used extensively for the rearing of goats and lambs over the past two decades complimenting the Eringold range of milk replacers.
In 1996 Robert was contacted by William Twomey of Inform Nutrition in Cork to meet to discuss some products which they had in relation to calf health which would compliment the milk powder range. Robert was very impressed with Williams vision and focus on calf health and his passion for creating quality products which were of great benefit to farmers when rearing calves. Robert started to sell as the main agent in Northern Ireland primarily Milkshake, Sweetlic Mineral Block range and Silasave.
This expanded into Eringold selling a wide range of products from Inform/Mervue which are widely used and valued on farm such as Calf Aid Paste, Calf Booster, Milkshake Power Colostrum and Encrypt to name but a few.
In 2015 Robert and Marions son Christopher entered the company and has added great momentum to the growth of the business pioneering new markets especially in the Republic of Ireland and Scotland. Chris always had a passion for calf rearing growing up on the dairy farm and has brought that passion into the business through supporting farmers with their calf rearing, promoting the Eringold range and improving the services Eringold can provide in the future.
Eringold would like to sincerely thank every customer who has supported them over the years and the friendships which have been built through the 25 years of trading and to every farmer who has ever used the Eringold range.
