Emydex celebrate 20 years in business on Friday 26th April, the company established by James and Red in 2004.
Having started out supplying factory floor software solutions to red meat primal processors in Ireland, Emydex software is currently operating in over 120 plants, in 20 counties, spread across 5 continents, from Auckland in New Zealand to Botswana in Africa to Vancouver in Canada.
Emydex software operates across all Protein Industries including meat, fish, and poultry, for leading meat processors such as Cape Karoo, the largest Ostrich processor in the world running Emydex across their multiple plants in South Africa.
Our team of 60-plus loyal employees are dotted all around the globe, enabling Emydex to provide world-class support to all our customers 24x7, wherever they are.
Below we show a brief history of the company in words and images, focussing on five time periods spanning our company’s evolution.
Emydex 20 Years
Company History in Brief
2004 – 2008
Emydex was established on 26th April 2004; the company's first office opened in Damastown, Northwest Dublin.
Over the first four years, James Grennan, Emydex CTO, lead a team of five software engineers to build the initial Emydex platform and Industry software modules.
The company's initial focus was on factory floor software systems for Red Meat primary processors, building Kill line and Boning Hall solutions in collaboration with Beef and Lamb processing customers such as QK Meats, Kepak, and Dawn Meats in Ireland and Dunbia group in the UK.
Tony Connolly joined the team in 2006 as company chairman to mentor and advise on the next growth stage.
2009 - 2013
In October 2009, David McMahon joined Emydex as CEO, introduced by Tony Connolly. David had previously worked with Tony and his company for five years as an IT Consultant.
The company scales rapidly in terms of its people headcount, adding project managers, business analysts and testers to the team, and opens a second Innovation/R&D office in Northwest Business Park.
Emydex expands further in Red Meat with the signing of Liffey Meats and expands into new food industries, working with Poultry processors like Moy Park, Value Added processors such as Oliver Carty and Green Farm Foods, as well as Cold Storage companies such as Interfrigo in Northern Ireland.
2013 - 2016
In December 2013, Emydex signed our first international customer: MeatCo, Namibia's largest beef processor, operating four Beef processing plants in Africa. This was soon followed by more customer wins in Sub-Saharan Africa, including Botswana Meat Commission, QKSA Cold Store, and Table Bay Cold Store in South Africa.
In 2014, working with the Irish Fisheries Board (BIM), Emydex built an Industry-Standard MES solution for Fish and Seafood Processors in Ireland for Primary and Secondary processing. The company signed up several Irish seafood processors, such as Castletownbere, Clogherhead, Galway & Aran Co-Operatives, as well as Glenmar and Rockabill.
In 2016, Emydex completed a large-scale rollout to Cape Karoo, the largest Ostrich Processor in the world, with eight plants operating on three sites in South Africa.
2017 – 2020
In March 2017, Emydex moved to a new corporate head office in Blanchardstown, Northwest Ireland, where we are still located today.
Emydex signed its first customer in Australia, Junee Lamb, operating in New South Wales in Australia. Following further customer rollouts in Australia, including O’Connor Beef, Harvey Beef and Victoria Valley Meats, Emydex Australia Pty Ltd is incorporated with an office for its Queensland-based employees on Browing Street in South Brisbane.
In 2018, Emydex secured its first customer in North America, Donald’s Fine Foods, which operates three Pork Primal Processing plants in Western Canada. Soon after, Emydex Technology Canada Ltd. is established, with an office opening in Kitchener-Waterloo, Ontario.
2021 - 2024
Emydex New Zealand was established following customer wins in New Zealand, including Silver Fern Farms (Beef, Lamb, Goat, Venison), Wilson Hellaby (Beef, Pork) and Open Ocean (Mussels). Emydex employs six people in New Zealand, including software engineers, testers, and a project manager.
Emydex Canada expands following new customer wins, including the Canadian Fishing Company and Sunrise Poultry. Emydex employees today spread across Canada from Ontario in the East to British Columbia in the West. Based in North America, this team sets the foundations for Emdyex to deliver real-time support to customers in the US, a target market for Emydex’s international expansion plans in 2024.
In July 2023, Emydex sold a major stake in the company to BAADER in Germany, giving Emydex access to BAADER's extensive overseas network of offices, sales and support staff. For BAADER, Emydex adds significant digitalisation capabilities to its existing digital product portfolio.
Click each image to read the full quotes
20 quotes, 20 customers, 20 years in Business
To mark our 20th anniversary, we asked 20 of our longest-serving customers, most of whom have worked with Emydex for 10 years or more, to say a few words about their experiences with Emydex over the past decade and, for some, the decade before.
These 20 customers operate Emydex software systems in 63 plants, over half our Emydex footprint. They have 225 years of collective tenure with Emydex, that is 11 years on average per customer. So, it's fair to say these companies know Emydex.
James and I are so grateful to our loyal employees and customers who have stuck with Emydex for so long on our journey.
A sincere thank you.
David McMahon, Emdyex CEO
