IDB plan to target developing markets

CHINA, Africa and other emerging economies will be core targets for new dairy products developed at the new Dairy Innovation Centre in Fermoy, Co Cork.

Formally launched last Friday, the joint initiative by the Irish Dairy Board (IDB) and farm research group Teagasc, the new product lines are being developed in tandem with an ambitious marketing strategy. The rise of affluent middle classes in China and other like economies is integral to that strategy.

IDB innovation and strategy manager Karen Thompson said the innovation centre will help deliver on the target of growing the “international markets” segment to 30-35% of IDB’s overall exports. The present split is 78% to the EU and 22% to world markets.

Karen Thompson said: “The entire of the EU will remain very important to us, but the areas we have identified for immediate export growth are the UK, Germany, the USA, China and Africa.

“Consumers need targeted campaigns to build familiarity, and to match products with their specific preferences on taste, flavour, health, etc. For instance, Africa is a powdered milk product market for us, with a strong emphasis on health and nutrition, and our Beo brand is doing very well for us in that market.”

Ms Thompson said that innovation will be critical to the success in growing Irish dairy exports in line with the expanded output expected to follow the abolition of EU milk quotas in 2015. The ongoing research work will have a sharpened focus on tastes and flavours in terms of their marketability in new target countries.

The IDB has invested another €1.5m this year to its research fund as part of the drive. Much of the rest of the investment will come from Teagasc’s other food industry partners, with the Government’s exact funding input yet to be confirmed.

Ms Thompson said the real scaling up in R&D terms will come when the innovation centre moves into a new custom-built facility planned on the Teagasc grounds.

In terms of building new customer awareness and loyalties in new markets, the IDB will seek to capitalise on the success of Kerrygold (already in the top three brands in every market in which it is currently sold, including domestic products), and the rollout will be preceded by the long, hard slog approach which has proven so successful for IDB to date.

In Bord Bia’s latest Food Alert, the food board’s Asia manager Breiffini Kennedy also cited Minister Coveney’s recent deepening of agri-food research links with China, which have been written into China’s latest economic plan.

Breiffini Kennedy also noted that the strongest endorsement of the science based approach of the Irish livestock and dairy industries is the presence of the infant formula multinationals Pfizer, Abbott and Danone in Ireland.