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Irish Dairy Board in E20m Tesco deal

Wednesday, November 14 12:03:24

The Irish Dairy Board (IDB) today announced a major contract with Tesco worth E20m for the supply of packet butter during 2012/13.

The deal sees the IDB supplying own brand butter to Tesco's European stores in Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary.

The average growth of dairy consumption across these four markets is 5.1pc versus the EU average of 1pc. Poland is the fourth biggest butter market in the EU and combined, these four markets consume 22 times the amount of butter consumed in Ireland. This announcement represents a significant advancement for the Irish dairy industry in these key markets.

Commenting on the contract Kevin Lane, CEO, IDB said the deal is important for Irish dairy producers.

'Today's announcement represents a key new route to market for the IDB as we prepare for the expansion of milk volumes ahead of the removal of milk quotas in 2015. This partnership with Tesco will help us on our journey to ensure that we meet our international export and growth objectives and feeds into our strategy of significantly growing new sales into new geographies and markets. We're confident that this exciting new growth initiative with Tesco can be built on further in the years to come.'

Tony Keohane, CEO, Tesco Ireland said, 'With over E700m worth of Irish food exported to Tesco internationally including 13pc of all dairy exports, today's announcement reaffirms Tesco as a very significant buyer of Irish food. We are continuing to explore new export opportunities for Irish products from established exporters and emerging SMEs.'

The announcement is the latest in a series of new market developments for the IDB who is responsible for just under E1bn worth of dairy product exports from Ireland annually.