Bord Bia shared a summary of the board meeting held on Thursday 22 January which saw the majority of board members support Larry Murrin as chair.

In an appendix to that summary Bord Bia shared some details of Irish beef imports from Brazil and Argentina. The State body said they totalled 145 tonnes from Brazil between January and October 2025, and 257t from Argentina over the same period. Bord Bia noted that the 145t is equivalent to approximately 508 Brazilian steers, assuming 285kg average carcase weight.

While not putting an exact figure on how much beef Dawn Farm Foods imported, it said that Brazilian beef accounted for 1% of the company’s imports in 2025. It said the Dawn Farm Foods’ purchasing priorities are Ireland, UK, EU and Brazil, in that order. No Brazilian beef was supplied to Subway in Ireland.

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Bord Bia said that Dawn Farm Foods, like many of Ireland’s most successful exporting food companies, works with “international multinational brand customers of significant scale”. This means that there have to be contingencies in place to ensure continuation of supply in case there is disruption. Bord Bia said those disruptions “may include crises such as Foot and Mouth Disease outbreaks or contamination events. Critically this in some cases requires the contingency supply to far reaching (off continent) sources.”

Bord Bia admitted that “while these contracts with these multinationals may require contingency supplies which are not optimum for us,” it said that “it enables the opportunity for significant supplies of Irish beef to be sold to these premium customers”.

Procurement

The summary from Bord Bia also addressed the awarding of a catering contract to Banqueting Food Systems, a company Larry Murrin is a director of, for catering services at Bord Bia Bloom. Bord Bia said that it runs all tender competitions in accordance with public procurement rules and guidelines, and competitions are run through the eTenders portal. It noted that in this case, the contract was awarded prior to the appointment of Mr Murrin as chair of Bord Bia.