Irish food firms target ‘out of home’ market with new sales programme

TEN Irish food companies hope to build sales thanks to a new Enterprise Ireland and Bord Bia programme geared towards the €4.7bn global market for ‘out of home’ products.

The producers of readymade meals, desserts, sushi, bread and sauces have already attended one workshop with Pallas Foods, which employs 500 people in Ireland. Pallas was acquired by Sysco Corporation Houston, Texas, USA, which has a team of 50,000 employees and revenues of $37bn (€27bn) per annum.

The selected companies all source raw materials from Irish farms. Readymade meals producer Country Cooking in Carrick-on-Shannon, Co Leitrim, hopes that the programme will help its new Boxty Bakers brand gain a foothold in the Irish market.