How we got here

Liam O’Connor founded Kerry Die 30 years ago and initially manufactured pellet mill equipment and dies mostly for the animal feed business.  In the last ten years, Liam and his son Hugh have devoted themselves entirely to the wood pellet production vertical.  Through their continued presence on the market, Kerry Die has also gained tremendous experience and knowledge in wood pellet production and worked with many leading wood pellet producers, notably in Sweden, Austria and Germany.  

After their move ten years ago to focus solely on wood pellets, Kerry Die quickly realised that there is little information and even less understanding of the complexity of wood as a feedstock for pellets.  The pellet manufacturing process is further complicated by among others the many different wood species, geographical locations of production facilities, humidity of pellets, ageing and storage issues.  Historically, the industry has tried to overcome most of these challenges by using existing types of pellet presses (mostly derived from the animal feed industry).  Almost all these solutions in the end proved inadequate and ineffective.

Faced with few alternatives to improve on existing technology, in 2003 Kerry Die decided to initiate a research program with two European universities (in Austria & Sweden respectively).  The programs undertook a chemical analysis of the specific elements in the structures of wood with as objectives to analyse what might aid and/or hinder the pelleting process.  After working for almost three years with the research teams and a select group of wood pellet producers, Kerry Die derived that a completely new approach was the only means of achieving increases in efficiencies and costs savings as well as improvements in the quality of the wood pellets themselves.

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