Yesterday, the first Food and Drink Council Meeting of 2010 took place in Teagasc, Ashtown. The event was an overwhelming success.  There were five new attendees at the meeting including Con Healy of Healys Honey in Ballincollig, County Cork ; Gareth Coleman of Glenstal Foods in Limerick; Celine Hayes English of Couverture in Dublin 12; Helen Gee of G's Gourmet Jams in Abbeyleix, County Laois and Tony Bateman of Petmaster in Dublin 12.  In addition, Brian Poland of Olhausens attended for the first time.

The Council was given an up-date of the Channel Cluster Programme by the 2 Cluster Leaders. Ronan Gillespie gave an overview of the La Rousse Foods cluster and the successes to date since the first Meet the Buyer Group Day last November. He was followed by Conor Hyde who gave the Council a detailed overview of the Horgan's Delicatessen Supplies cluster, which he is managing, since September 2009.  The mentors gave examples of how the companies are being assisted to grow sales through new listings; improve revenue by reducing costs; NPD, better branding and packaging; reaching overseas markets and other areas. New product lines are being developed and new jobs are being created and others have been safeguarded. Godfrey Lydon, Manager Food and Drink with the IEA told the Council that both clusters will be exhibiting under the IEA banner at the Food and Drink Expo in Birmingham in March.  This will be a great opportunity to showcase their brands to UK buyers.

Paul Moran of Mediaworks was the final speaker and he gave a presentation on the current media landscape in Ireland.  The title of his presentation was "Branding - Why Bother?'. He advised the Council on how important it is to invest in your brand equity even in a downturn.  He also stated that it was a great time to advertise with rate cards now down to 2002 levels. He gave the example of the recent Johnson, Mooney and O'Brien ads as an example of clever, cost effective advertising.  This was followed by Anita O'Grady who presented the findings of a recent survey of food and drink companies by the IEA.

A full report of the council meeting will be published in the coming days along with the results of the survey.

The next council meeting is planned for mid May.