Three TY students from Ballinderreen, all of whom attend Seamount, Kinvara have set up a business called Pallet Bros as part of the Student Enterprise programme, in which they take unwanted pallets and turn them into unique handcrafted designs.
Their business recently won the senior category of the Galway Student Enterprise County Final and will be representing Galway in the National Final on May 14.
Pallet Bros was established in October 2020 when they began making Christmas trees by upcycling old pallets. These Christmas trees were a huge success and lit up the local communities of South Galway and further afield. On the back of this success they have recently launched a Spring collection of products including bird tables, planter boxes, and storage boxes for the new season.
“A large part of our success is due to the sustainability of our products. Our resources come from local farmers and factories who mainly burn their pallets. Recycling these pallets has helped the environment which for them is a huge positive as it helps combat climate change, a global problem. they even re-theme the nails from the pallets when building our products. To date they have received a lot of orders for these from as far away as Roscommon and even the UK,” they said.
“We have abided by the 5km rules of Covid-19 restrictions, our materials are local and our customer base is local. They make each tree by hand theming basic tools such as hammers, nail bars, a chop saw, a staple gun, hand saws and a t-square. It is really labour intensive but very rewarding when it comes to seeing our products on display around our community and it has been a profitable enterprise for us,” they said.
“Our success has been helped greatly by the support of the South Galway community. We made a special Christmas tree for our local community centre in Ballinderreen and it stood in the village for everyone to see. We have donated money to cancer research in Ireland; we gave a tree to our local hurling club and one to Blake Manor Nursing home which really brightened the place up for residents,” they concluded.
Best wishes to them for their future entrepreneurship. You can find them on Facebook @palletbrosinc and on Instagram @palletbrosincgalway.
