CJ Sheeran is a timber pallet manufacturer headquartered in Mountrath, Co Laois and with other plants in Mayo and Dublin.It's a real family-based company with very strong family connections within the business , almost everyone employed is someone else’s brother, father, son, sister, cousin, as Ashleigh Doyle the compliance director from Sheerans said.
At CJ Sheeran, almost two million pallets are produced every year and another two million are recycled. They export some pallets directly to the UK, but 85% of what they produce is indirectly exported all over the world by their customers, with some of the country's best known brands on board. The rules state that all timber packaging needs to be heat-treated to eradicate such pests and marked with a special mark. Currently pallets moving within the EU do not have to be heat-treated as the EU enjoys single country status but if the UK crashes out later this month it will become a "third country" and the "bark beetle rule" will come into effect immediately.
Most in industry know that the vast implications that a hard Brexit will bring will be very difficult to work through and to work with. While Sheerans and others see the pallet heat-treatment rules for export as an opportunity for growth, they are more than worried that this extra business will be fleeting and that if UK business actually falls then their customers exports may well shrink in size because of Brexit, and so too will their pallet orders.