News & Events

Kerrygold Park opens – a new global home for Kerrygold

€38 million butter production & packing facility to serve the world’s love of Irish butter

65 new jobs created in Mitchelstown

Ornua today celebrated the official opening of Kerrygold Park, a €38 million state-of-the-art Kerrygold butter production and packing facility in Mitchelstown, Co. Cork. The production facility will have a capacity of up to 50,000 tonnes of butter per annum and will initially employ 65 people. The new centre was officially opened by Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Michael Creed TD, Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation, Mary Mitchell O’Connor TD and Ornua Chairman, Aaron Forde.

Ornua is Ireland’s largest exporter of Irish dairy products, exporting to over 110 countries worldwide. A key part of Ornua’s growth strategy is to significantly increase sales of the Kerrygold brand. Today, Kerrygold sales retail at c€750 million, with targets to grow to €1 billion. Kerrygold Park will ensure a world-class supply chain to support both this growth target and the further development of the brand.

Kerrygold Park will have the capability to produce new butter products and formats not currently available in Ireland. Kerrygold Park will also house the ‘Green to Gold’ Customer Innovation Centre, which will be a key destination for international customer visits to Ireland.

Commenting, Kevin Lane, Ornua CEO said: “The opening of Kerrygold Park marks a special day for Ireland’s dairy industry. The quality of Irish milk is exceptional. From the fields to the processors, the success of Kerrygold is based on the outstanding quality of the milk and cream that goes into it.   Now, we have a world-class production and packing facility to complete the value chain.   Kerrygold Park is core to our ambitious plans to develop the Kerrygold brand from a butter brand to a dairy brand. Not only will the new facility significantly enhance our production, it also greatly improves our innovation capability and our ability to deliver premium dairy products to consumers around the world. This is the most effective way of securing value for Irish dairy farmers.”

Opening the facility, Minister Creed said: “Increasing global population, urbanisation and the westernisation of diet in developing countries offers Ireland’s dairy industry significant opportunity for expansion. Ireland’s targets for the development of the sector under Food Wise 2025, and beyond, require that we identify valuable routes to market and mechanisms to add value to Irish dairy products.

By opening new markets and developing new products, Ornua is playing a key role in delivering the demand for Irish product to meet increased supply resulting from the abolition of milk quotas. The opening of Kerrygold Park is a major vote of confidence in the future of the Irish dairy industry. Furthermore, this new facility offers a significant jobs boost to North Cork and the South West Region.”

Minister Mitchell O’Connor added: “The opening of Kerrygold Park, and the 65 new jobs created today, is excellent news for the people of Mitchelstown and North Cork. This announcement is hugely significant for Ireland’s dairy sector. Kerrygold is already an iconic butter brand and this expansion is important to our continued growth in export trade. Ornua’s strategy to develop Kerrygold as a global dairy brand will contribute to increasing trade and employment in rural communities throughout Ireland.”

The opening was attended by international customers and representatives from the dairy and business communities. The establishment of Kerrygold Park is the latest step in Ornua’s business growth programme. The goal of this programme is to build and develop valuable routes to market for Irish dairy products. Ornua purchased 286,000mt of dairy products from Ireland’s dairy processors in 2015, up 16% on the previous year, this figure is expected to grow by c30% in 2016. New factory builds and factory expansions have been completed in Africa, China, Germany, Spain, the US and the UK.

Ireland’s Global Food Brand

Kerrygold is Ireland’s much loved global food brand. The Kerrygold brand was created by Sir Anthony O’Reilly in 1962, CEO of, what was then called, An Bord Bainne. His vision for the brand was to establish Kerrygold as a premium brand, befitting the rich quality of Irish milk. The Kerrygold story is, to a large degree, the story of Irish dairy farming. Known and loved by consumers around the world, the brand is associated with images of cows grazing in lush green pastures. Irish diaspora spot the familiar golden foil packaging in shops around the world and it is an immediate link to home. Kerrygold advertising campaigns became viral at a time when YouTube did not exist, and to this day people of a certain age still ask the question “Who is Taking the Horse to France?”. Today, Kerrygold enjoys leading positions in many of its markets. It is the number one branded butter in Germany. In the United States, Kerrygold is the number one imported butter brand and the number three overall butter brand.

ENDS

Ornua

Head of Communications

Jeanne Kelly     087 1223669

Murray

Joe Heron       087 6909735

Aimee Beale   086 1514024

About Ornua

Ornua – The Home of Irish Dairy, is an agri-food commercial co-operative which markets and sells dairy products on behalf of its members, Ireland’s dairy processors, and in turn the Irish dairy farmer. Ornua is Ireland’s largest exporter of Irish dairy products.

Operating from 15 subsidiaries worldwide, Ornua has sales and marketing teams working in-market across all four corners of the globe from Algiers to Beijing to Lagos and LA. Headquartered in Dublin, Ornua exports to over 110 countries with annualised sales of circa €2.5 billion. The business is structured across two core platforms; Ornua Foods and Ornua Ingredients. Ornua owns the iconic Kerrygold brand, as well as the Pilgrims Choice, Dubliner, Shannongold, Forto, Eureka! and BEO Milk Powder brands. Ornua supplies superior quality dairy ingredients to leading global food manufacturers from some of the world’s most technically advanced manufacturing and prepacking facilities located in Africa, China, Ireland, Germany, Saudi Arabia, Spain, the UK and the US.

Timeline – A History of Kerrygold

1961 17May 1961, An Bord Bainne (Irish for The Irish Dairy Board) is established to “promote, facilitate, encourage, assist, co-ordinate and develop the exportation of milk and milk products”

1962 The Kerrygold brand name is chosen from a total of sixty suggestions and the brand is launched, not in Ireland, but in the UK

1964 Kerrygold starts exporting to many more markets overseas, such as Gibraltar, Malta, Cyprus, Middle East, Gulf States, Canary Islands, the Caribbean and Asia

1973 Kerrygold is exported to EEC member states including Germany. Today, Kerrygold is the No. 1 butter brand in Germany

1973 11 years after launching in the UK and around the globe, Kerrygold goes on sale in Ireland

1979 Kerrygold Regato Classic launches in Greece. Today nearly 4,000 metric tonnes of Kerrygold Regato are sold in Greece each year

1980 A new Kerrygold logo is unveiled

1984 Kerrygold Regato Classic airs its very own TV advert on Greek TV

1989 Kerrygold becomes a proud title sponsor of the Dublin Horse Show

1991 Kerrygold expands the range of Kerrygold cheese and butter products in the US

1994 Kerrygold adverts become as legendary as the butter. One of the much-loved classics ‘Who’s taking the horse to France?’ aired in 1994

1995 Kerrygold launches milk powder in South Africa

1998 Kerrygold Dubliner cheese launches in the US

2000 Kerrygold milk powder launches in the Democratic Republic of Congo

2005 Kerrygold gets very own German street, renamed Kerrygoldstrasse

2009 The iconic TV ad, ‘The Sod’ airs in 2009

2010 Kerrygold launches the new logo that you see today

2013 Kerrygold becomes the title sponsor of Kerrygold Ballymaloe Lit Fest

2013 Kerrygold celebrates 40 years in Germany

2014 Kerrygold receives planning approval for a new home, Kerrygold Park, a butter manufacturing and packing plant in County Cork

2014 Kerrygold breaks into a new category, launching an Irish Cream Liqueur in the US

2015 Ornua becomes the new name of The Irish Dairy Board

2015 Kerrygold opens a new milk powder packing facility in Nigeria

2016 Kerrygold Yogurts launch in Germany

2016 Kerrygold Park opens - the new global home for the manufacturing and packaging of Kerrygold butter products