‘Origin Green could be the next Kerrygold’

ORIGIN Green could be the next Kerrygold, Dawn Farms’ CEO Larry Murrin has said.

Seven years ago, at the invitation of Bord Bia, Larry and a group of fellow agri-food heavyweights and intellectuals from Harvard University, gathered to create a new brand for Ireland.

“We all asked ourselves the question — can we create the next Kerrygold? And could it apply to dozens of different food products in Ireland?”

“Kerrygold is the outstanding, wonderful success story that Ireland has had in dairy products right across the world in 60 years. You’ll find Kerrygold on market shelves all around the world. There is great pride in that and everybody wants to know how it can be recreated.

“We concluded that it might be impossible to replicate, but we did believe Ireland’s clean, green, fertile, fun agricultural image could have global appeal with today’s consumers,” he said.

Messages including environmental, social responsibility and sustainability fed into the thinking pot, and the concept of Origin Green as a sustainability watermark of quality was born. Dawn Farms became one of the first food companies to be certified and supported the marketing of Origin Green through sponsorship of the Origin Green Ambassadors programme.

“We put our money where our mouth was, it was a tough economic time, but we fundamentally believe it is the right aspiration for Ireland albeit that it’s going to take maybe 10 years to deliver the real benefits of the vision.

“Today, I understand more than 90pc of all food exports are produced under the Origin Green charter and Bord Bia’s vision to arrive at close to 100pc of Irish food being produced under Origin Green is achievable in the next three years.

“At that point, Ireland will have an absolutely unique place in the world of food production,” he said.