The Arrow Group of companies posted an after-tax profit of €23.2m for 2024, an increase of just under €3m on the previous year. This included €8.4m profit on the sale of tangible fixed assets.

This was delivered on a reduced turnover of €748m which was down from €759.2m the previous year (See Figure 1).

There was a significant drop of €12.8m in the cost of sales which left a gross profit of €105.8m compared with €104.2m the previous year. However, administrative expenses were €6.2m higher in 2024 at €66.7m and the group operating profit fell to €23.3m compared with €29.3m in 2023.

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There were 2,217 people employed in the business in 2024, split between 1,828 in production and 389 in administration and sales.

Staff costs to the business increased to €107.6m, up from €99.7m the previous year.

The Arrow Group is the holding company for several businesses owned by the Queally family. They were also founders of Dawn Meats along with the late Dan Browne.

Among the best known of these are: Dawn Farms, QK coldstores, QK meats, Irish Dog Foods, and Irish pig producers will be familiar with Queally Pig Slaughtering which trades as Dawn Pork and Bacon.

Dawn Farms is a major player in the manufacture of processed meats and describes itself as the “largest B2B (business-to-business) specialist supplier of pre-cooked meat, plant protein, fermented and dried sausage ingredients outside of the US”.

Full service solution

The company employs over 1,400 people, more than half of the Arrow Group staff and its main processing facility is in Naas, Co Kildare and also other facilities in Germany and the UK.

The business is based on what it describes as a “full service solution” to customers in the pizza, sandwich, snack and prepared meals categories, and it is in over 50 markets and claims to have its products sold in more than 55,000 retail and food service outlets.