Bord Bia has reported a sixth consecutive year of export growth for the food and drinks industry. Export values were up by over 3% to exceed €10.8 billion in 2015 - a record level. Improved returns for beef, seafood and beverages helped to offset a weakening in global dairy prices.
Aidan Cotter, Bord Bia's chief executive, said the company's performance was impressive considering that, in the last year alone, global food commodity prices dropped by 19%. "In December, they were 35% off their peak in April 2011. It was a particularly strong performance over a period where the global backdrop was not favourable," he said.
The dairy sector was under particular pressure with dairy product prices down by between 10% and 41% across different products. "There was an average 29% reduction, yet the category recorded growth of 4% in export terms. It was driven completely by strong performance in specialist nutrition powders where exports were up by 25%, and by 40% to China. If they were excluded, all the other categories fell," Mr Cotter explained.
Despite recent global stock market turmoil and expectations that the Chinese economy was in a slowdown phase, total food and drink exports went up by 16% to that market. "It's Ireland's fifth largest market and has been growing in all categories. We continue to witness good growth in the Chinese market," Mr Cotter stated.
The weakness of the euro has been of considerable benefit to the overall export market. "When we consider all euro depreciation against sterling and the dollar, in an ordinary year, it would have added €1 billion, but a lot of that was conceded away by falling global commodity prices. However, it contributed to a 40% increase in exports to US, and the UK became an even more important market due to the strength of sterling," the Bord Bia CEO said.
He also noted that the beverage market was particularly strong, driven by Irish whiskey, a sector in which exports grew by 18% last year. Overall beverage exports were up 10%.
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MORNING BRIEFS - Ornua is to acquire the Shanghai based dairy manufacturer, Ambrosia Dairy, which will give the former Irish Dairy board its first manufacturing base in China. Ambrosia Dairy manufactures products such as sour cream, yoghurt and speciality cheeses which it supplies to the retail and food service markets in the Shanghai region. The Ambrosia facility will also include a new product development centre that will focus on developing cheese products specifically for the Chinese market.
*** Oil prices have fallen further with the price of a barrel of Brent crude testing the $30 threshold. The US benchmark price went below the $30 mark yesterday. That coincided with an announcement from BP that it is cutting 4,000 jobs globally and Brazillian oil giant Petrobas has announced a massive scaling back in investment.
