SF Engineering designs, manufactures and installs high quality food production lines. We combine process design expertise that enables us to specify highly efficient food production lines that reduce costs, increase capacity and require less maintenance; food technology experience in sectors including meat, poultry, fish, bakery, dairy, fruit and veg, ready meals and pet food, that ensures we understand the regulatory and consumer requirements our customers must meet; manufacturing excellence – we are experts in precision engineering of complex engineering systems for the food sector; we provide a trustworthy support service to our clients who operate round the clock throughout the year. We deliver prompt, reliable support services to ensure that their time-critical production lines are not held up by maintenance issues; a customer-focused attitude -we understand that our customers drive our business. We reflect that understanding in an adaptable, courteous attitude when working with customers – we are easy to do business with.
Our Background

SF is an award-winning engineering company that designs and manufacturers food processing and packaging solutions throughout the food industry. Established in 1983 by managing director Seamus Farrell its origins are in supplying the fish, meat and poultry sectors with process solutions to help businesses deliver a better product to their customers.
Over the past 30 years SF has continued to invest in its people and in its own manufacturing processes. The company has also been highly innovative with its products, solutions and services. This strategic approach has enabled SF to consistently grow and serve all food sectors and global customer base.
In 2009 SF acquired UK company Opal F.P.S in a strategic move that strengthened SF’s ability to serve the growing food industry with customers extending throughout Ireland, United Kingdom, Europe, Russia, the Middle East and Chile. Additionally, a long-term association with Ishida Europe and Ceia, as well as business partnerships with Key Technology and Unikon, have increased the company’s product offering.
With its head office in the west of Ireland, complemented by UK and European facilities, SF is ideally positioned to serve global food producers with advanced, quality processing and packing equipment that deliver safe and healthy fresh meat and produce to a plethora of high profile customers.
In addition, with a global team of 115 SF specialists in design and engineering, sales and marketing, project management, and customer service the SF team can offer the market capability and reliability that is second to none in its industry. The group’s expertise and experience enables SF to deliver products that allow its customers to offer increased quality, extended shelf life and the fresh convenience and highly nutritious food required by the modern consumer.
From Farm to Fork:

The journey from farm to fork has never been more important for the food industry. There is now an intrinsic need for total traceability.
SF has invested heavily to ensure that the company continually provides its broad range of customers with the advanced equipment needed to ensure their products are kept fresh and whole throughout the process. Automation and control advances in the industry have resulted in reduced product handling, increased hygiene, and much faster processing times with increased accuracy. Along with cost-effective production systems this means that fresh, quality products are available from supermarkets daily. SF engineers excellence by design- offering solutions that are fabricated in stainless steel and utilise only the most robust belts and materials.
Innovative 3D vision systems, x-ray quality control technology and packing robots are just a sample of the cutting edge applications that SF supplies to its customers to make this happen. The solutions SF offer can be fully integrated within existing production lines. Alternatively, the SF Project Management Team have the experience and knowledge to provide turnkey solutions designed to meet customers’ objectives offering bespoke, cost-effective solutions that offer an excellent return on investment while delivering a superior product to the consumer plate
Innovators and Integrators

The continual investment in SF Engineering by Seamus Farrell over 30 years has allowed the company to become experts in the integration of tried and tested systems that fit customers’ operational needs with the aim of improving their production efficiency, yield, and product quality. An unwavering focus on increased customer profitability together with years of engineering, technical and design expertise means that SF can offer a wide variety of systems tailored to the specific needs of individual customers.

From butchery and cutting to weighing, grading, portioning, and deboning to packing, stacking, and dispatching, the SF application allows products to be monitored with the use of advanced software solutions that deliver the accurate production data into a customer’s ERP system.
Increased Customer Base

Through significant investment in R&D over the past five years SF has been able to launch several new products. These innovations include: the SF Easi-clean Range, Meat Primal Deboning and Grading Systems, Intelligent PAD and RFID Crate Systems and Rotary Batch Systems. There are a number of new products in development that SF will take to market in the next five years.

This investment has enabled the company to maintain the quality of its manufacturing and production process that in turn has resulted in an increasing customer base and expanding market share. A steady growth of 25% year-on-year affords the financially strong SF an opportunity to proactively innovate high quality equipment and systems. Ultimately, SF always has and continues to deliver a superior return on investment for SF customers around the world.