Jacob Fruitfield Foods chief, Michael Carey, played a waiting game to capture the biscuit group but will waste no time in revamping the new brands, he tells Barry O'Halloran.

It must have come as a source of great relief to many last week that a secret vital to our national well-being was back in Irish hands.

The secret is the answer to the age-old question: "How do Jacobs get the figs into the fig rolls?" And Fruitfield Foods boss, Mr Michael Carey, and his fellow shareholders in the company, last week "rescued" it from foreign ownership when they bought W&R Jacob from French food giant, Groupe Danone, for a sum somewhere north of €100 million.

W&R Jacob, which owns the Jacobs' and Bolands' biscuits businesses, was widely expected to go to UK-based United Biscuits, but that deal would have faced a number of competition law hurdles. So last week, Fruitfield Foods emerged as the purchaser, bringing a company that was founded here in the eighteenth century back into Irish ownership.

But there was nothing jammy about the deal for Fruitfield. In fact, it was partly the result of two years' worth of relationship-building and patience. Mr Carey has worked with both Irish Biscuits (owned by W&R Jacob) and Fox's in the UK, and knows a thing or two about biscuits. He has had his eye on W&R Jacob since he returned to this country in 2002.

He and his fellow shareholders, Mr David Andrews and Mr Michael Tunney, (both of Lioncourt Capital, but are Fruitfield shareholders in a personal capacity), wanted to buy a strong Irish food business in 2002. "At the time, right at the top of the list was W&R Jacob as a potential target," he says.

"We made approaches to Groupe Danone at that point, but they weren't interested. Then we went off and bought Fruitfield (from Nestlé). Since then we have remained in fairly constant contact with Danone, or with Jacobs senior management in the UK, to make sure that they knew we were here, and to make sure that whenever they decided to sell the business, they wouldn't go through the process without at least talking to us."

This meant talking to somebody in that group every three months or so. At the end of May one of those routine calls brought a result. Mr Carey called, and someone at the other end said: "yes we are interested in selling the business, and we'd like you to come an and talk to us."

Mr Carey went and talked to them, in Paris last spring. There, he and his team met Mazard Brothers, Danone's corporate finance advisers, and began hammering out the deal that was sealed last week. Just 12 hours before the last 'i's were dotted and 't's crossed, he had business cards printed bearing the name of the new entity, Jacob Fruitfield Food Company.

It is one the biggest privately-held food companies in this country. It has combined sales of €100 million, net assets of €94 million and employs 550 people. Bank of Scotland provided the debt finance and the working capital needed to start developing the business.

The company itself unites what are, by Irish standards anyway, some venerable old businesses and its brands include products that are household names in this country. They include the aforementioned Jacob's Fig Rolls, Kimberley, Mikado and Cream Crackers.

W&R Jacob accounts for 35 per cent of the Irish biscuit market, so broadly speaking, it is responsible for one in every three biscuits consumed here. On the strength of this, and the fact we Irish are among the world's highest per capita consumers of biscuits, it has yearly sales of €70 million.

On the other side of the business Fruitfield is responsible for brands like Little Chip and Old Time Irish marmalades, Chef sauces and Silvermints, the most popular mint in the country. These are well established brands. Anyone over 30 probably remembers ads featuring Steve Silvermint (the cool clean hero) and the Garda sergeant who used to be a morning grouch, until he tried Little Chip marmalade.

"We have got brands that are incredibly popular with Irish consumers," Mr Carey says. "We've very strong market shares in lots of sectors: marmalade with Old Time Irish, Silvermints in the confectionary category, and Chef is amazingly strong up against multi-national brands. And now in on the biscuit side we've got great brands that go back to the 1800s.

"They all compete with multi-national brands in their own categories. Chef takes on Heinz, pretty much head-to-head, in many sectors, and in many sectors it's the dominant brand.

"Jacobs takes on the imported brands of McVitie's and Fox's. It really is a case of traditional old Irish brands taking on the multi-national imports. We think we can defend that position and build on it. But they need attention and they need focus. They're brands that consumers love.They haven't had a lot of investment. They looked, to a certain extent, a little bit dated.

"They need to be refreshed and we need to generate new products around them. We need to become more active with the Jacobs brands. We're not saying we're better than Danone, but by focusing on the Irish business, we're not distracted by the needs of other markets."

So assuming that heritage and even consumers' affection do not add to either the top or bottom line, what is Jacobs Fruitfield going to do? "We have to keep them relevant for the consumers, we have to make sure the packaging is up to date. If it starts looking dated, consumers will start drifting away to the products that look more relevant to their needs," he says.

"There needs to be innovation around the products themselves, around the recipes and ranges of products. For example, in Chef we have done a range of low-fat dressings in association with Unislim. That helps to strengthen the whole range by being seen to have a relevant product.

"In Jacobs there's an opportunity to do products that are more health-oriented, that are more indulgence-oriented. The packaging is important and the actual food that is inside the packaging has to be consistent with trends in the Irish consumer market. They need constant attention and constant investment to keep the brand up to date."

Mr Carey believes that the business could grow sales to €150 million if the company does the right things. But he acknowledges that the local growth opportunities are limited. He suspects that it might be 10 per cent across the company's Irish markets. This means he is going to have to look overseas, and maybe take on the multinationals in their own back yards.

He is confident that there are good export opportunities. It will not so much be a case of selling fig rolls to the French, but of developing new products and ranges that will have appeal abroad. One example he cites is Kellogg's nutri-grain cereal bars, which, he explains, "is the same as a fig roll".

Products like that are well within his company's capability. "There's no reason in the world why, as a manufacturing company, we can't manufacture those types of products and position them properly. And those products sell right around the world," he says.

Which is all very well, but none of this explains how Jacobs get the figs into the fig rolls. He laughs: "If I told you, I'd have to shoot you."

Factfile:

Name: Michael Carey.

Position: Chief executive, Jacob Fruitfield Food Group.

Family: Married to Alison Cowzer, who is expecting their second child in two weeks. They have a two-year-old daughter, Shona.

Background: Educated at St Vincent's CBS, Glasnevin, Dublin and UCD. He worked in marketing jobs in Batchelor's in Ireland and Fox's Biscuits, Yorkshire, before becoming marketing director of C&C soft drinks. In 1997, he returned to England to become managing director of Evian Volvic UK and Ireland, then returned to Fox's as managing director before joining Kellogg's as managing director, UK and Ireland. In 2002 he bought out Nestlé Ireland to form Fruitfield Foods.

Interests: He used to play basketball and is now trying golf.

Why he is in the news: Fruitfield took over W&R Jacob last week to form Jacob Fruitfield Food Group.