Workers laid off at Hexafly
The award winning Meath company, Hexafly, has laid off almost half their workforce citing a delay in receiving employment wage subsidy as the reason behind the move.
The company informed workers last Friday week, at the end of the working day that around 10 people would be temporarily laid off.
“They told it it was only temporary but couldn't tell us when we would be take back on and they told us it was because of financial difficulties,” according to one of the employees.
“It is very upsetting on the run up to Christmas and a lot of us have families to feed and mortgages to pay.
CEO, Alvan Hunt said the company had taken the action in response to a restructuring of the company necessitated by a delay in receiving an employment wage subsidy scheme (EWSS) refund and overall costs spiralling due to Covid restrictions over the last 18 months. These included high feed costs, which have increased by 300 per cent and rising electricity costs.
“At this time, we are unable to confirm the exact duration of this change, We would like to assure the staff that they remain employed by the company.
“We are doing everything we possibly can to resolve the situation and will keep all staff informed of developments and notify them as soon as the situation has reversed.
“The company is raising a funding round at present to continue to support its operations and return to full capacity. Along with this the company has secured a large seven year contract with a multinational feed distributor for over €20million and is working towards delivering on this,” Mr Hunt concluded.
Hexafly is an award-winning vertical insect farm based at Rathfeigh, which was founded by Alvan Hunt and John Lynam to “bring an insect farming revolution to the world”.
Hexafly have won the award for the Innovation Category at National Enterprise Awards and an Enterprise Ireland Innovation Arena Awards.
The company supplies sustainable natural commodities to the animal feed, plant nutrition and bio-polymer industries and have one million adult black soldier flies on the vertical insect farm.