Dairy Council rolls out 5-year plan

AN ambitious five-year strategic plan is being rolled-out by the National Dairy Council (NDC) to strengthen Ireland’s €1 billion dairy market.

Chief executive, Helen Brophy, told the NDC annual general meeting in Dublin that the council had completed 2007 in its strongest position in many years.

“While there were some hard lessons learned, the work involved in creating a newly effective organisation showed the existence of a great deal of goodwill towards the NDC.

“We are now re-engaging with stakeholders to support the growth of the Irish dairy industry and to strengthen the relevancy of dairy to the Irish consumer in the coming years.”

Ms Brophy said it is a time of rapid change in global dairy markets and this necessitated a fundamental strategic review of the organisation. “The review involved us consulting with the farmers who fund and support us, as well as processors and state agencies and other stakeholders.

“A clear conclusion of the review was that the NDC had reached a watershed in its life and needed to reposition its services to become a key agency in the dairy support infrastructure. This led us to develop a new strategic plan designed to achieve that objective,” she said

Ms Brophy said the NDC is actively beginning the roll-out of the new five-year strategic plan.