The Arrow group of companies recorded a profit after taxation of €11.4m for the 2025 financial year, on a turnover of €794.1m. Turnover increased by €46m from €748m the previous year – though profit was down on the €23.2m posted for the 2024 financial year. See Figure 1 for annual turnover and profit after tax since 2018.

The Arrow group is the holding company for several businesses owned by the Queally family.

Among these is Queally pig slaughtering, that trades as Dawn Pork and Bacon, a major pig processor in Co Waterford, and QK meats and QK coldstores – also well known in the Irish agri food industry. Dawn Farm Foods is also part of the group and made the headlines earlier this year, as its chief executive Larry Murrin, who is also chairman of Bord Bia, faced a call to resign from that role.

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This was due to the use of a small quantity of Brazilian beef in the business, which exports 95% of its production to over 55,000 customers in more than 50 different countries worldwide.

Directors report

In the business review section of the report, 2025 is considered as having delivered “a positive trading year for the group”.

It attributes the performance to “continuing activity with existing customers and the onboarding of new customers, along with new product lines across all key markets”.

It also acknowledged that “the group continues to benefit from positive customer sentiment and maintenance of market share”.

While the dip in profits is not referred to specifically, the report recognises that the positive sentiment referred to was “offset somewhat by varied protein, transport and commodity price fluctuation on the world markets”.

Number analysis

While there was an increase in the business turnover from €748m to €794.1m, there was also an increase in the cost of sales from €642.2m in 2024 to €698.1m in 2025.

This impacted on gross profit, which dropped from 105.8m the previous year to €96m.

Distribution costs increased marginally to €17.6m, while administrative expenses dropped to €62.8m in 2025 compared with €66.7m in 2024. There is a €900,000 cost attributed to the impairment of financial asset and a €211,890 profit on the sale of a fixed asset is reported.

The previous years accounts included a €8.4m profit figure on the sale of a tangible fixed asset. Staff costs for the group in 2025 were €112.4m, up from €107m in 2024 and the overall number of employees was 2,213, which is similar to the year before.

Interestingly, the Dawn Farm Foods website says it employs over 1,400 people in their part of the business making it the largest employer in the group.