Dairygold looking at options to improve pig sector

A JOINT venture with Glanbia or Dawn, or the closure of Dairygold Co-op's pig slaughtering and buying in the pigmeat it needs for its consumer food brands, are among options suggested by Co-op chief Jerry Henchy.

The co-op kills about 10,000 pigs a week but says it only utilises 35% of the pigmeat in its rashers, ham and sausage products under the Galtee and Shaws labels.

One of the co-op's challenges is to match the competitiveness of the pig sector in Denmark, the leading pork and bacon supplier to the UK, which has processing plants handling 30,000 to 40,000 pigs per week as many pigs as the combined Dairygold, Glanbia and Dawn Meats operations. Mr Henchy has questioned if the co-op's pig slaughtering is a core part of its future.

"The consumer foods Galtee and Shaws brands certainly are. But we have to ask might we be better to buy our pork and ham requirements from other processors who would have a higher throughput of pigs to kill and therefore a lower unit cost of processing."