"I really believe the Irish consumers are receptive to dairy and Irish co-ops could play more in the consumer trends business such as indulgence, gut health, etc, and maybe even try and bring more retail products into the mix."
These were the words of Valio’s Kevin Deegan when asked what could Irish co-ops could do to get further up the innovation ladder.
Wexford native Kevin Deegan left University College Cork with a degree and a post-doctorate in food science over 18 years ago and is now vice-president of innovation and insight at Valio, Finland’s largest food company and co-op.
Deegan was speaking at the Agricultural Science Conference (ASA) conference 2025 in Cork on Thursday, which was supported by FBD Insurance.
The Irish Farmers Journal featured Valio numerous times down through the years, as many Irish farmers thought the model of individual co-ops co-existing alongside each other - and then processing and marketing as Valio does - was a possible option for Irish dairy co-ops. Valio’s most recent turnover was €23bn.
Crisis
Interestingly, the Valio model hit a crisis in 2014 when European product into Russia was practically banned overnight.
At the time, about 20% of Valio’s turnover was in Russian sales, but the annexation of Crimea and all that followed essentially removed that market as an option for the company.
Vice-president of innovation and insight at Valio Dr Kevin Deegan at the 2025 ASA conference. \ Finbarr O'Rourke
Deegan described how innovation then went into overdrive at Valio, as the business faced one of its biggest ever crises.
“Valio approaches innovation in a certain way - we create, we invent, we do supply push innovation, because we know we have a really good starting material in milk. Take for example ‘Kieha’ in this carton – it means ‘to boil’ in Finnish.
"Essentially, the fraction of milk that causes the burn when boiled has been taken out. It’s not the biggest selling product we will ever have – we have over 850 SKUs on shelves – but it has its place – its own existence,” he said.
Consumers
Deegan talked also about understanding what consumers want or may want and once you have that pipeline of innovation or capacity to do research and development you can get ‘pull’ innovation – that is pulling the ideas out of researchers to fix a need.
Deegan believes it is that mix of pull and push innovation that makes Valio so successful.
The Valio vice-president also went on to explain the journey Valio is going on plant-based meat and alternatives and the relatively recent acquisition of plant-based food company Rude Health into the Oddlygood stable last October.
Rude Health was and still is one of Britain’s best known plant-based drink brands.
Valio spun out of Oddlygood in 2022, but remains majority shareholders and, now, in the space of six and a half years, it has accumulated sales of over €50m.
"That’s innovation in practice and how a change of mindset has opened doors for Valio, not because we can, but because there is a need," Deegan said.
"I really believe the Irish consumers are receptive to dairy and Irish co-ops could play more in the consumer trends business such as indulgence, gut health, etc, and maybe even try and bring more retail products into the mix."
These were the words of Valio’s Kevin Deegan when asked what could Irish co-ops could do to get further up the innovation ladder.
Wexford native Kevin Deegan left University College Cork with a degree and a post-doctorate in food science over 18 years ago and is now vice-president of innovation and insight at Valio, Finland’s largest food company and co-op.
Deegan was speaking at the Agricultural Science Conference (ASA) conference 2025 in Cork on Thursday, which was supported by FBD Insurance.
The Irish Farmers Journal featured Valio numerous times down through the years, as many Irish farmers thought the model of individual co-ops co-existing alongside each other - and then processing and marketing as Valio does - was a possible option for Irish dairy co-ops. Valio’s most recent turnover was €23bn.
Crisis
Interestingly, the Valio model hit a crisis in 2014 when European product into Russia was practically banned overnight.
At the time, about 20% of Valio’s turnover was in Russian sales, but the annexation of Crimea and all that followed essentially removed that market as an option for the company.
Vice-president of innovation and insight at Valio Dr Kevin Deegan at the 2025 ASA conference. \ Finbarr O'Rourke
Deegan described how innovation then went into overdrive at Valio, as the business faced one of its biggest ever crises.
“Valio approaches innovation in a certain way - we create, we invent, we do supply push innovation, because we know we have a really good starting material in milk. Take for example ‘Kieha’ in this carton – it means ‘to boil’ in Finnish.
"Essentially, the fraction of milk that causes the burn when boiled has been taken out. It’s not the biggest selling product we will ever have – we have over 850 SKUs on shelves – but it has its place – its own existence,” he said.
Consumers
Deegan talked also about understanding what consumers want or may want and once you have that pipeline of innovation or capacity to do research and development you can get ‘pull’ innovation – that is pulling the ideas out of researchers to fix a need.
Deegan believes it is that mix of pull and push innovation that makes Valio so successful.
The Valio vice-president also went on to explain the journey Valio is going on plant-based meat and alternatives and the relatively recent acquisition of plant-based food company Rude Health into the Oddlygood stable last October.
Rude Health was and still is one of Britain’s best known plant-based drink brands.
Valio spun out of Oddlygood in 2022, but remains majority shareholders and, now, in the space of six and a half years, it has accumulated sales of over €50m.
"That’s innovation in practice and how a change of mindset has opened doors for Valio, not because we can, but because there is a need," Deegan said.
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