€70m for Irish food producers to diversify away from the UK in light of Brexit
The 22 projects and food producers will receive direct funding for capital investments to their facilities including upgrades to ingredient processing systems.
The State is to invest €70m to help meat and dairy producers to diversify their products and attract new markets in the wake of Brexit.
The 22 projects and food producers will receive direct funding for capital investments to their facilities including upgrades to ingredient processing systems.
Bandon Vale Cheese, T O'Regan & Sons in Clonakilty, Henry Denny & Sons in Charleville and Silver Hill Foods in Monaghan were all approved for €5m each in funding, the largest amount to any facility.
The Capital Investment Scheme for the Processing and Marketing of Agricultural Products will help farmers and those working in food production to diversify their offering, to attract new markets and customers, making their business more resilient and sustainable in the long term. The fund will be administered by Enterprise Ireland.
Eight of the firms are located in the Munster region.
Ireland's agricultural industry produces enough food to feed our population nine times over and the sector employs almost 165,000 people. However, the significant volume of food exported to the UK has raised concerns, heightened in recent days by the ongoing threat by the British government to trigger Article 16 of the Northern Ireland Protocol that could threaten the entire Withdrawal Agreement with the potential for a trade war between the UK and the EU.
In such a scenario Irish food exports could become a target for tariffs in a similar way to a long drawn-out trade war between the EU and the US that saw Irish butter being impacted.
“This €70m funding will go directly to food producers and processors in the meat and dairy sectors to help them diversify and win new customers post-Brexit," Tánaiste Leo Varadkar said.
“Brexit caused huge uncertainty for the sector and is a warning of the dangers of becoming over-reliant on a certain market. Similarly, the need to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions while maintaining production levels is another challenge facing our food producers."
"We need to take action now that embraces new technology, creates new jobs and new business opportunities, protects rural communities and tries to avoid driving up the cost of living. This fund aims to help food producers make the transition," Mr Varadkar said.
Agriculture, Food and the Marine Minister Charlie McConalogue said new product development and market diversification needed to go hand-in-hand.
"The €70m investment we are announcing today will assist the sector, expand current markets and increase sales of higher value-add products in the global marketplace maintaining our position as the sustainable food capital of the world," he said.
The minister said it will be a priority that Irish food exporters can take advantage of the opportunities in key international markets as global markets recover from the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic. "The key to these strategic investments is bringing benefits for all those along the supply chain, particularly farmers as the critical primary producer who are the bedrock of €14bn export sector."
Leo Clancy, CEO, Enterprise Ireland said the funding for the 22 projects will support investments of over €266m across regional and rural Ireland.
"Our agri-food sector has to increasingly focus on sustainability, competitiveness and innovation to grow existing and new markets and the funding announced today will help achieve these important goals," he said.
This €70m investment is part of the €100m Scheme first announced on 28 December 2020. A further call under the scheme is expected at a later date.
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