Golden anniversary for Irish Dairy Board

IT’S ALL go at the Irish Dairy Board, which is celebrating its 50th birthday this year.

The Irish exporter, which ships up to €2 billion worth of Irish dairy products overseas each year, is soon to announce the appointment of Jeanne Kelly, formerly of PR and communications firm Murray Consultants and digital marketing agency Cybercom, as head of communications.

Ms Kelly takes over from Liam O’Neill, formerly a business journalist with the Irish Farmers Journal and a qualified accountant who is moving into a finance role within the Irish Dairy Board.

The IDB is also the happy recipient of the Loans and Financing Deal of the Year at Finance Dublin’s annual awards earlier this week. They won the prize for a €190 million chunk of their recent €350 million refinancing package.

The €190 million three-year supplier financing facility was a reverse invoice discounting facility (RID) tailored to fund the working capital needs of the IDB’s co-op members.

Meanwhile, Musgraves has put its consumer PR contracts out for tender for the Supervalu and Centra brands. Edelman currently holds the contract for Supervalu, while Bespoke is the company behind Centra. Both have worked with Musgraves on the brands for 4½ years.

It is believed that both incumbents are throwing their hats in the ring for the new contracts.