Irish dignitaries, including Taoisech Mr Enda Kenny, T.D., recently joined Gerry Behan, chief executive officer and president of then Kerry Ingredients & Flavours Division of Kerry Group and senior executives of Gilbane Building Company to celebrate the groundbreaking of the Kerry Group's new Global Innovation and Technical Centre, a state-of-the-art 26,200 square metre (282,000 sf) facility that will bring 900 jobs to the area.

Gilbane Building Company, which previously built a similar facility for Kerry Americas in Wisconsin, is leading the design/build effort and construction through its new Irish division, Gilbane Ireland Limited.

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"We are thrilled to be working with Kerry again and to be building their new facility in Dublin," said William Gilbane, Jr., Gilbane's president and chief operating officer who also had the honor of pouring the first cubic meter of concrete for the new building. "In 2010, the Kerry facility we built in Wisconsin won our Builder of the Year award. We look forward to bringing that same level of outstanding quality, service, and client advocacy to this new project. On a personal note, my great-grandfather left Ireland in 1845 as a boy and founded our company in 1873. It is with a great sense of pride that we are now working so closely with Kerry and all of our Irish partners as we return to Ireland as part of our global expansion."

The new state-of-the-art Innovation and Technical Center will include customer application suites, research and development labs, culinary facilities, sensory services and a center dedicated to customer production commercialisation. The heart of the facility will be devoted to production and customer evaluation and include an office building composed of large ribbon windows and suites, which will allow customers to view and test products in a natural environment.

(CD/MH)