Irish Dairy Board revenue at €2bn

New products as well as overseas acquisitions, capital investments, and ambitious plans for post-2015 growth in emerging markets, form the back story to the €2bn revenue reported in the Irish Dairy Board’s (IDB) annual results for 2012.

IDB’s pre-tax profits rose 5.8% from €15.4m in 2011 to €16.3m last year. Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortisation rose 10.8% from €38m to €42.1m, with about €20m of the gap between post-tax and pre- tax profit figures explained by depreciation on plant machinery in its recent mergers and acquisitions in the US and other overseas markets.

“The future will be all about growth,” said IDB chief executive Kevin Lane. “It is our responsibility to grow Kerrygold and our other brands. We should see a flood of new milk in 2015, and the investments we made in the US, UK, Middle East, Africa, and Russia, where we believe we can see huge growth.”

IDB acquisitions such as The Cheese Warehouse in the UK, and Thiel Cheese and& Ingredients in the US, as well as new investments in emerging markets all performed well.

The company also divested of IDB Belgium NV (Yoko), and launched more than 50 new products. It will unveil a new butter product in July and a new cheese in October, both developed in its Dairy Innovation Centre in Fermoy, Co Cork, and destined to hit emerging markets in the first quarter of 2014.

The IDB enjoyed growth in all of its core markets in 2012, with branded volumes up 7%.

The IDB’s Kerrygold brand is now the No 1 butter in Germany (15.3% overall market share) and is the top imported butter in the US.

Mr Lane said: “2012 was a strong year for the IDB with the implementation of our business transformation strategy now clearly starting to bear fruit.

“The group achieved solid earnings growth, despite challenging conditions in the first half of the year.

“We continue to build sustainable new routes to market ahead of the abolition of milk quotas in 2015. With the right structures in place, we are well positioned to take advantage of the exciting opportunities emerging in our industry.”

Group turnover exceeded €2.03bn, up 2% year-on- year. It has net assets of €405m. The group made cash payments to members of €12.9m last year, the same as in 2011. Its members’ bonus was up 5.6% year-on-year in 2012 from €9m up to €9.5m.