Irwin’s Bakery has been bought out by a local businessman in a move which ends 114 years of family ownership.
Founded in 1912 in Portadown, County Armagh, the Northern Irish bakery manufacturer has been taken over by Sam Rusk. He has already been working with the supplier for four-and-a-half years as a non-executive director and investor, supporting a successful turnaround back to profitability in 2023. Irwin’s latest full-year accounts to 28 September 2025 reported turnover of £30.2m and pre-tax profit of £1.2m.
With Brian Irwin retiring after five decades at his family’s bakery firm, Rusk has now acquired his shares and assumed the chairman role. Brian’s sister-in-law Kathleen and nephew Ross have also stepped down from the board, with other nephew Stewart (part of the fourth generation) being the only remaining family member left employed at the company, taking care of packaging.
In the latter stage of his career, Brian has been highly active with trade bodies and is to continue as chairman of the Federation of Bakers, having taken over the role last year from Mike Roberts, the former deputy chairman of Roberts Bakery.
Day-to-day operations are to remain unchanged at Irwin’s purpose-built production site on Diviny Drive, which currently employs around 220 staff members. The existing executive team will continue management, headed up by CEO Michael Murphy along with financial director Chris Jarvis, head of operations Aaron Hannigan, and head of technical and NPD Noeline McCooey – all of whom have been with the firm for over 10 years.
Murphy told British Baker that the business is in a very busy period at the moment due to the manufacturing of Halloween Brack for retailers in Ireland. Also known as barmbrack, the Irish seasonal product is a sweetened loaf with added sultanas and raisins that traditionally contains objects such as a stick, piece of cloth, coin, ring, or pea, each representing a different future for the recipient relating to marriage prospects or fortunes (good or bad).
Irwin’s version of Halloween Brack contains a ring, which Murphy said was essential for Irish customers but caused frowns amongst British technical teams as they had to turn metal detectors off in the bakery. “It’s done in a very controlled environment and for a short period,” he assured.
Meanwhile, Nutty Krust continues to be Irwin’s best-selling product in Northern Ireland. The sliced white plain loaf was first introduced back in 1961, and is made via an 18-hour fermentation process and slow-baked for 75 minutes in the sole of the oven. “We were doing sourdough before it was trendy, we just didn’t call it sourdough,” expressed Murphy.
Irwin’s also supplies branded and own-label lines of muffins, potato farls, wheaten loaves, fruit loaves, malt loaves (under the Veda brand), rolls, and more.
The company is on track to be profitable again in FY26, asserted Murphy, which he said was unusual among large-scale bakery manufacturers against a backdrop of challenging trading conditions. “It’s been a hard year for the likes of Braces and Roberts,” he added. “We’re not being cautious, but we’ll just be playing the right markets and the right products that we can make a proper return and keep the business stable.”
Murphy noted the Northern Ireland market had been central to the Competition and Markets Authority’s enquiry into the merger of Allied Bakeries and Hovis, with the deal going through seemingly without opposition, despite an “awful lot of questions and interviews with retailers and suppliers”.
“We might see some change in things there in terms of some of the retailers having up to 80% of their [range supplied by] one bakery,” said the CEO, adding that daily fresh delivery and sliced bread prices were always a challenge. He revealed Irwin’s had moved “slightly towards foodservice”, growing that and its cake business.
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