A small Irish firm has clinched a deal that could see it supplying a third of South Africa’s lucrative mushroom market over the next two years.

Harte Peat, based in Clones, County Monaghan, has a current staff of just 25, but its mushroom casing soil mix, based on deeply dug wet peat, is already proving a huge success in export markets. According to a spokesman, the South African contract is expected to add more than £370,000 to company turnover and create extra jobs.

The deal with Echo Business Solutions, a distribution firm based in Cape Town, with centres in Johannesburg and Durban, was concluded during an Irish trade mission to South Africa last week, headed by Taoiseach Bertie Ahern and trade and enterprise minister Michael Martin. The founder and managing director of Harte Peat, Thomas O’Harte, was among 50 Irish business leaders on the trip.

After the contract signing, Martin paid tribute to the Monaghan company which, he said, “ has set itself the ambitious target of supplying 35 per cent of the mushroom industry in South Africa within 18 months”. The company, he added, provided “an excellent example” of how a quality, environmentally friendly product, based on Irish natural resources, could compete successfully on world markets.

The enterprise, established 20 years ago by Thomas O’Harte and his wife Kay, has won a clutch of Irish business awards during that time for its innovation and export performance. Some 400 acres of Irish peat bog provide the resource for a soil mix the company claims is suitable for all growing systems: bag, block, tray or shelf.

Around 80 per cent of Harte Peat’s production is exported, to markets stretching from Australia, Japan and Colombia to Israel, Cyprus and the Netherlands. “We’ve even established trade with Iran,” said sales and marketing manager David Austin.

The company also supplies the Irish and UK markets. “Local growers are really struggling to survive just now,” said Austin. “Their margins, already razor thin, have been further eroded by the fall in the value of sterling against the euro, and some are warning that they may be forced out of the business. Even though we are mostly export-oriented, we certainly wouldn’t want to see that happen.”

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