Northern Ireland's Dunbia in top UK sales league

Dunbia, the Northern Irish beef, lamb and pork processor, is the only Northern Irish food manufacturer listed in the Britain's private companies with the largest Fast Track sales published by the Sunday Times with HSBC.

The strength of Northern Ireland's &pound4.5 billion food industry is also seen in the listing of Spar master franchisee John Henderson Group of county Antrim in the prestigious listing of Britain's top companies.

Dunbia, the processing business founded and owned by Jim and Jack Dobson, is listed at 78 in the table on the basis of sales of almost &pound800 million last year, up 5.8 per cent on the previous 12 months.

The group, which has operations in Great Britain and the Republic of Ireland had profits of &pound14 million and employed almost 3,300 people. It has joint ventures in France and Holland.

The group is headquartered at Dungannon in county Tyrone and is now among the biggest Northern Ireland companies with fast growing exports to around 20 markets worldwide.

Dunbia was formed in 1976 from a family butchery business in a small village near Dungannon.

John Henderson Group is Northern Ireland's biggest food retailer and wholesaler and is based at Mallusk in county Antrim, near Belfast.

The group had sales of just over &pound651 million, profits of &pound30 million and employed over 2,500 people. It is owned and run by the Agnew family. The group is listed at 94 in the table - up from 98 the previous year.

The Sunday Times Fast Track 100 ranks Britain's top performing privately-owned companies by sales.