Glanbia Ireland’s consumer foods chief Colin Gordon to step down

Glanbia Ireland's chief executive of consumer foods, Colin Gordon, who is responsible for brands including Avonmore, Kilmeaden Cheese and Premier Milk, plans to step down from the company.

Mr Gordon has worked for 33 years in the consumer goods industry. He was hired by Dublin-listed Glanbia plc in 2005 from C&C Ireland where he had been in charge of brands including 7-Up, MiWadi and Ballygowan.

An internal announcement at Glanbia Ireland on Monday said that Mr Gordon wished to “take a change in direction with his career” but that he would stay on until the end of 2018 “to support the development of the new business model”.

This comes almost nine months since Glanbia plc spun off a 60 per cent interest in its then Dairy Ireland consumer foods and agribusiness units into a joint venture with its main shareholder, Glanbia Co-operative Society.

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The resulting company was called Glanbia Ireland.

Glanbia Ireland also told staff on Monday that the company's head of agribusiness, Colm Eustace, had signalled at the formation of the joint venture last year that he planned to retire at the end of 2018.

Glanbia plc was formed out of the 1997 merger of the country's two largest dairy co-operatives, Avonmore Foods and Waterford Foods. It has evolved significantly since then and now concentrates on its higher-margin nutrition business, which makes and sells protein shakes and bars, and its Glanbia Nutritionals US cheddar cheese and value-added protein ingredients division.