When starting up a business, one must be like an athlete training for the Olympic Games
In the last two years, the value of food and drink exports has increased by €1.8 billion, or 25%.
Surveys indicate that some 42% of food and drink manufacturers have increased full-time staff numbers over the last year, with a further 46% maintaining numbers in full-time employment.
Even better news, the prospects for Irish food and drink exports in 2012 remain positive.
In the same week that Bord Bia revealed the food and drink industry success story, two of the business people behind it have been revealing just how much hard work has gone into the industry’s achievements.
Fianna Fáil senator Mary White told of the “perseverance and steel” behind Lir Chocolates, a company she started with Connie Doody, and which now employs more than 200.
She said they worked 24 hours per day, seven days per week for 16 years, on Saturdays, Sundays, Christmas Day and St Stephen’s Day.
Every day, they faced a mighty challenge which could have put them out of business. When starting up a business, one must be like an athlete training for the Olympic Games, she advised.
Another big employer in the chocolate business, independent senator Mary Ann O’Brien of Lily O’Brien’s Chocolates, said she is a self-confessed serial entre-preneur who loves business.
She said she cried most days for eight months, after business difficulties in 2008 forced her to freeze staff salaries and banks refused to renew annual loans.
Ms O’Brien was lucky that Enterprise Ireland and a private investor loaned her the money to tide her over. She could have lost her house, because her mortgage guaranteed the business — and would not have been eligible for the dole or free fuel.
Difficulties continue, however, and Ms O’Brien warns that the Social Protection Minister’s new sick leave regime will seriously hamper small- and medium-sized businesses like her own.
Their statements indicate the huge efforts behind achieving 2011’s all-time high Irish food and drink exports of €8.85bn.
Among the notable developments during the year, according to Bord Bia, were continued diversification by industry into new markets, with exports to Asia up by one-third; and the exceptional performance of the beef industry in achieving an increase in market returns almost twice the European average.
The meat and dairy sectors account for almost two-thirds of total food and drink exports.
Higher prices boosted trading, but a number of key sectors — including dairy, beverages and pigmeat — also recorded higher output. Overall, volume growth accounted for 25% of the rise in export revenues.
The growth in exports has boosted farmer confidence, according to Bord Bia, reflected in signs of beef and sheep herd rebuilding, while dairy farmers continue to gear up for quota removal in 2015.
The work of Bord Bia must also be acknowledged.
The food board has set itself the target of securing €15 million in new business in one day next month, when over 300 international and 100 domestic food and beverage buyers are expected to attend Bord Bia’s Marketplace International 2012 in Dublin on February 7.
