Niall Browne, the chief executive of Dawn Meats, has been chosen as The Irish Times Business Person of the Year for 2025 at the eighth annual Irish Times Business Awards in the Mansion House on Thursday night.
The award comes on the back of the Waterford-based meat processor receiving the green light to acquire a majority stake in New Zealand’s biggest meat processor, Alliance Group.
Browne was chosen as the winner of The Irish Times Business Person of the Month for October when the news of the deal broke.
Dawn Meats completed the deal with Alliance in December that saw the Waterford group agree to pay 270 million New Zealand dollars (€132 million at the time) for a 65 per cent shareholding.
READ MORE
Farmer-shareholders, who retain a 35 per cent stake in the business, also stood to benefit from a distribution of up to NZ$20 million in the initial financial year and up to NZ$20 million in the next financial year.
Just weeks after the deal, Alliance Group’s chief executive Willie Wiese stepped down with Browne taking up the mantle on an interim basis in addition to his position as chief executive of Dawn.
Speaking to The Irish Times at the time of the shareholder approval, Browne said that while the appetite for red meat was on the rise globally, there were limited opportunities to secure supplies to satisfy that demand.
“For a company like Dawn, which has grown to the size it has in Ireland and Britain, there is not much more we can grow in those jurisdictions,” he said.
A graduate of the University of Limerick where he studied marketing and agribusiness, Browne joined the meat business on a graduate management programme before rising through the ranks. He was appointed chief executive in 2007, aged 34.
Rounding out the year, Dawn Meats won the award of the World’s Best Steak alongside Lidl for its grass fed Angus sirloin. The steak is sold by Lidl in Ireland and comes from cattle bred in Co Waterford.
Dawn is a family-owned business which was founded in 1980, with more than 8,000 employees and exports to more than 50 countries. Its annual turnover is in excess of €3 billion, and operates under the Dunbia brand in the UK.
