Ornua from the Irish "Ór Nua" meaning "new gold" (known as The Irish Dairy Board from 1961 to 2015) is an Irish

agricultural cooperative An agricultural cooperative, also known as a farmers' co-op, is a cooperative in which farmers pool their resources in certain areas of activity. A broad typology of agricultural cooperatives distinguishes between agricultural service cooperati ...

, which markets and sells dairy products on behalf of its members: Irish dairy processors and Irish dairy farmers. The co-operative is Ireland’s largest exporter of Irish dairy products and owns the Kerrygold butter and cheese brand as well as

Kerrygold Irish Cream Liqueur Kerrygold Irish Cream Liqueur is an Irish cream, Irish whiskey, and chocolate based liqueur produced in Ireland by Kerrygold Irish Cream Liqueur Limited. It was first introduced in the US in 2014 and the trademark is owned by Kerrygold under ...

. In addition to the Kerrygold brand, its brand portfolio includes

Pilgrims Choice Pilgrims Choice is a cheese brand owned by Irish dairy exporter Ornua (formerly Adams Foods Ltd and the North Downs Dairy), with UK operations based in Leek, Staffordshire. Despite an Identification Code of UK LK002, Pilgrims Choice is substant ...

, Dubliner, Shannongold, and BEO milk powder.

History

The Irish Dairy Board was established by an act of the

Oireachtas The Oireachtas (, ), sometimes referred to as Oireachtas Éireann, is the Bicameralism, bicameral parliament of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. The Oireachtas consists of: *The President of Ireland *The bicameralism, two houses of the Oireachtas ...

, the Dairy Produce Marketing Act 1961, and replaced the earlier Butter Marketing Committee. It was created to centralise the overseas marketing of Irish dairy products to achieve economies of scale and greater

brand recognition Brand awareness is the extent to which customers are able to recall or recognize a brand under different conditions. Brand awareness is one of two dimensions from brand knowledge, an associative network memory model. Brand awareness is a key consi ...

. At the time of the Board's creation, the

European Economic Community The European Economic Community (EEC) was a regional organization created by the Treaty of Rome of 1957,Today the largely rewritten treaty continues in force as the ''Treaty on the functioning of the European Union'', as renamed by the Lisb ...

's market was closed to Irish butter, and the United Kingdom market limited Irish imports by an import quota. The name Kerrygold was selected to evoke "farming, naturalness, goodness and above all quality milk" as well as a sense of Irishness. In October 1962, the Board successfully test-launched the Kerrygold brand in the

Winterhill Campbell Park is a civil parish in Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire, England. The parish is bounded by Childs Way (H6) to the north, the River Ouzel to the east, the A5 to the west, and Chaffron Way to the south. The parish includes the , , , , , W ...

area of

North West England North West England is one of nine official regions of England and consists of the ceremonial counties of England, administrative counties of Cheshire, Cumbria, Greater Manchester, Lancashire and Merseyside. The North West had a population of ...

. When Ireland joined the

EEC The European Economic Community (EEC) was a regional organization created by the Treaty of Rome of 1957,Today the largely rewritten treaty continues in force as the ''Treaty on the functioning of the European Union'', as renamed by the Lisb ...

in 1973, the Board began expanding its presence to continental Europe, beginning with the North Rhine-Westphalia state of Germany. By 1982, Kerrygold had national distribution in Germany. On 31 March 2015, the Board assumed a new corporate identity as Ornua: "The Home of Irish Dairy".

Today

Currently, Ornua operates from 19 subsidiaries worldwide, with pre-packing and blending facilities located in Germany, Great Britain, the United States and the Middle East. A €36m state-of-the-art Kerrygold butter production and packing plant (Kerrygold Park) has been constructed in Mitchelstown, County Cork. In 2020, Ornua announced an investment of £3m in its

Leek The leek is a vegetable, a cultivar of ''Allium ampeloprasum'', the broadleaf wild leek ( syn. ''Allium porrum''). The edible part of the plant is a bundle of leaf sheaths that is sometimes erroneously called a stem or stalk. The genus ''Alli ...

production facilities, to boost capacity in response to greater consumer demand for its cheese products and bringing total annual production to more than 110,000 tonnes. In 2014, the Spanish cheese manufacturer Luxtor, previously a subsidiary of the system catering chain Telepizza, was taken over. Kerrygold is the second highest-selling butter in the United States and the highest-selling butter in Ireland as of 2019. Butter portions and cheese items are also available for bulk consumers.

Awards

The Irish Dairy Board was awarded Exporter of the Year by the Irish Exporters in 2010.

References

External links

Official website
{{Authority control Marketing boards Agricultural marketing cooperatives Agriculture in the Republic of Ireland Dairy products companies of Ireland Cooperatives in Ireland Cooperatives in the Republic of Ireland Food and drink companies based in Dublin (city) Irish brands