The Ibec Prepared Consumer Foods (PCF) Strategy for Ireland has set ambitious targets of increasing exports from the sector by 50 per cent and growing employment by more than 25 per cent by 2035.
The sector is made up of 1,650 companies producing or supplying value-added food and beverages, from packaged fruit and vegetable produce to value-added meat, consumer dairy, ambient, frozen, bakery, non-alcoholic beverages, and a lot more besides.
“For most people the term prepared consumer foods won’t be that familiar,” says Linda Stuart-Trainor, director of prepared consumer foods within Ibec industry body Food Drink Ireland. “But there’s no doubt that everybody knows the products. Most of the average shopping basket is made up of prepared consumer foods. It’s a really diverse sector, and what unites all of the companies in the sector is that they’re providing added-value food and drinks.”
That diversity extends to scale. “The average size of companies in the sector is about 20 employees, and that tells us it’s made up of SMEs predominantly,” Stuart-Trainor notes. “They are located in all parts of Ireland and include very well-known local food producers, national brands, and a cohort of Irish companies that have been really successful in exporting, and have become global powerhouses. The other part is the imported products that are always going to be important, because a lot of our favourite brands and products are produced elsewhere and are brought onto the Irish market by companies here.”
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The sector makes a significant contribution to the economy, she points out. “Over 30,000 people are employed in prepared consumer foods. That’s about half of the total employment in food and drink manufacturing. It’s very embedded in local communities, with a long-term commitment to investment and employment in Ireland, and we can’t underestimate the importance of that.”
The annual spend on wages is about €1.1 billion, she adds. “The sector also spends another €750 million in local economies every year. The other really successful aspect is the export story. The sector accounts for €3.6 billion worth of exports to 140 different markets.”
The Ibec strategy sets out a vision for the industry. “It is for a vibrant, competitive and growing PCF sector that sustainably enriches lives, economies and our planet,” says Stuart-Trainor. “We’ve identified five strategic pillars that need to be addressed for that vision to be achieved – competitiveness, people, innovation, sustainability and health. For each one of those we’ve gone into the detail of what we need from the Government, whether that’s by way of supports or breaking down barriers or reducing administrative burdens, and we’ve also looked at what the sector can do to help itself.”
‘We want to cement Ireland’s reputation as a world-class manufacturer and exporter of high-quality, nutritious, prepared consumer foods’
Rising costs are among the key competitiveness concerns. “Energy costs in particular,” she says. “The goal is to try and get industrial energy costs down to the EU average. We know that the energy grid requires a lot of investment, but we should look at who should pay for that. At the moment, a lot of it is passed through to users, but in fact that’s public infrastructure, it’s a public good, and we feel that a larger share should be funded from the central exchequer.”
On the people pillar, she notes that PCF is a high headcount sector. “What we’re asking for is really close monitoring of the level of Government-imposed costs on employment and a commitment to capping that each year. We also want to address some of the skills bottlenecks, and get the story out about the exciting career opportunities there are in the sector for people straight out of school right up to PhD level.”
On innovation, the strategy is targeting an increase in spending by the sector to 3 per cent of turnover from 1.2 per cent currently. To help to achieve that, the strategy calls for a simplification of access to innovation supports available through Enterprise Ireland, Bord Bia, Teagasc and other bodies.
Innovation also comes into play in the sustainability pillar with the aim of delivering carbon abatement, resource efficiency and waste reduction, contributing to the creation of a sustainable food system.
“We also want to cement Ireland’s reputation as a world-class manufacturer and exporter of high-quality, nutritious, prepared consumer foods,” she adds.
“If we deliver all of this, we hope to see significant benefits for the Irish economy and society. We want to achieve 50 per cent export growth in the next 10 years, which would bring us to €5.4 billion in exports. On the employment side, we’re looking to get to 38,000 people employed in the sector by 2035. That will help to drive balanced regional development of the Irish economy. If we get a lot of this right, there’s a real route to scaling for SMEs to employ more people, to create more value and to helping the next generation of Irish prepared consumer foods companies to go global.”
