Bord Bia receive €6.7m in additional funding for exports in light of Brexit

Tara McCarthy, CEO Bord Bia with Minister for Agriculture Food and the Marine, Michael Creed TD at todays announcement of 6.7 million extra funding for Bord Bia to assist Irish Food exporters build new opportunities.

"Market prioritisation and insight key to identifying export opportunities for food, drink and horticulture companies and producers." says Department of Agriculture, Food & the Marine.

Horticulture

13 September 2017

Minister Michael Creed T.D. announced on Monday, September 11, further funding of €6.745 million for Bord Bia to undertake a programme of additional activities to support the food, drink, and horticulture sectors in addressing the market challenges relating to Brexit.

This is part of a wider strategy, linking the Department’s market access efforts to those of agencies such as Bord Bia and Enterprise Ireland, and using Ireland’s network of Embassies as a hub, to develop the profile of Ireland’s food sector and improve access to a wider range of markets worldwide.

The funding is additional to the €1.6 million provided to Bord Bia in Autumn 2016 for grants to assist food companies highly dependent on the UK market and the €2 million already provided to Bord Bia in 2017 for increased expenditure on programmes.

Announcing the additional funding of €6.745 million for Bord Bia, the Minister said: “This programme of activities draws on analysis of data from the Bord Bia Brexit Barometer exercise which was completed by 139 food, drink and horticulture companies and follows my request to Bord Bia to undertake a major market prioritisation exercise to identify the best prospects for sustainable growth in individual sectors.

“The programme is wide-ranging, well thought through and ambitious. It is, in my view, an appropriate element of our response to the marketing challenges presented by Brexit in terms of business development and diversification. “

Important initiative in terms of our response to #Brexit. New markets, new opportunities. https://t.co/sdITzggTdx

— Leo Varadkar (@campaignforleo) September 11, 2017

Monday’s announcement is in addition to a number of initiatives already announced by Minister Creed. These included the re-configuration of the market access effort within his Department and the provision of additional resources for this purpose, the development of a new portal website which will bring together in the one location the full range of open markets and products, the relevant conditions of certification in a user-friendly manner for exporters, and a programme of trade missions to provide an opportunity to Irish exporters to develop a market profile and presence in third countries.

The market access efforts of the department and its agencies have already borne fruit in recent years, with the value of exports food and drink to international markets having increased by 13% in 2016 to some €3.5 billion.

The intention now is to further intensify the work in a strategic way.
Referring to this wider strategy the Minister said “ This funding is part of an overall drive for a joint government, agency, industry and company strategy for market diversification as part of a response to the unprecedented challenges potentially presented by Brexit and already visible in terms of currency volatility.

“I am particularly pleased that companies with a significant dependence on the UK market will benefit from an additional €250,000 in marketing grants, which will bring total projected expenditure on grant schemes in 2017 to €1.45 million, and that a further €200,000 is planned to continue and extend support to horticulture companies undertaking lean projects. “

He added: “In November I will be leading a trade mission to Japan and the Republic of Korea. This follows trade missions in the past year to China, Singapore, North Africa, the Gulf States, the U.S. and Mexico. Minister Doyle has also led a trade mission to Vietnam and the Republic of Korea.

My Department works very closely with the Irish embassy network, and with Bord Bia, who also have officers in locations around the world, with the most recent offices opened in Singapore and Warsaw.

The Minister noted that the €6.7 million comprises an additional €300,000 for market prioritisation, €4.4 million towards market promotion and supports in international, UK and other EU markets, €1.6 million to strengthen strategic marketing processes and €400,000 in funding for a two year MSc in Insight and Innovation in NUI Maynooth which was recently launched by Bord Bia.