2022 was the year of getting back to business for Bord Bia

Draft Bord Bia accounts for 2022 seen by the Irish Farmers Journal show that spending by the body tasked with promoting Irish food, drink and horticulture products globally increased by €10m to €84.8m for the year.

The major driver of the increase was the loosening of Covid restrictions worldwide, meaning the return of international travel – and trade fairs.

Bord Bia’s spending on trade fairs under the Food Promotions Special Funding made available by the Department of Agriculture rose from €175,000 in 2021 to €1.15m last year.

The year 2022 saw the agency move into its new headquarters in Dublin 4, for which it paid rent, rates and other charges during the year of around €960,000. The total rent paid for Bord Bia’s overseas offices was €658,000.

Last year also saw the appointment of a new CEO, with Jim O’Toole taking the role on 1 November. According to the draft accounts, he was paid €29,976 for the last two months of the year, which would put his salary, pro-rata, at €179,856/annum.

That would be in line with what out-going CEO Tara McCarthy had earned in 2022 – and a €10,000/annum increase on her 2021 salary.

Overall, Bord Bia had 152 whole-time equivalent employees during the year, with 86 of those earning between €60,000 and €99,999, and 14 earning more than €100,000.

Expenditure

Bord Bia breaks its expenditure down into different categories based on its own strategic priorities (what it calls We Must Do deliverables).

For 2022, those priorities were: “Build food brand Ireland”, to which it attached €22.3m of 2022 spending; “Develop better ways for clients and customers to connect”, to which it attached €16.5m of 2022 spending; “Nurture and attract industry talent”, to which it attached €4.25m; and “Champion insight-led innovation”, to which it attached €4.7m.

There is a fifth “must do”, which is to support and enable the organisation and its stakeholders to execute strategy. That one sounds a lot like just managing the organisation, and it had no specific cost attached to it.

From reading the draft report, it seems that this “must do” mostly consisted of having meetings.

On the outlook for Irish food exports, Bord Bia struck a generally cautious note overall.

In dairy, which saw 33% export growth by value in 2022 to €6.88bn, there was a word of warning, in particular about the performance of specialised nutritional powders, with the report suggesting US production challenges which helped drive global demand in 2022 are unlikely to be repeated.

Beef

In beef, Bord Bia says the outlook is “generally regarded to be broadly optimistic” (which is two qualifiers away from being actually optimistic). While they see supply and demand to be balanced during 2023, cost-of-living pressures as well as consumer sentiment on beef are seen as possible headwinds.

The report suggests a drop in overall Irish finished cattle of 2% or 30,000 head in 2023 as a whole.

On the export of live cattle, which is dominated by calf exports to the Netherlands, Spain and Italy, the short-term prospects are positive, while the medium to long-term outlook will be decided by new EU rules around transport of live animals, which are expected to come in to force from 2024 onwards.

Sheep and pigs

For sheep, both production costs and consumer sentiment will remain the deciding factors in the market. There was some optimism about the prospects for the US market once direct access is fully restored.

In pigs, uncertainty over the outlook for Chinese production, the outlook for feed costs and even the strength of the US dollar all feed into very little clarity on how the year will treat Irish pork producers.

See Phelim’s report about China's pig meat imports for more on this.