A third company has been approved to supply cattle tags to farmers. Datamars Agri Ltd can now sell conventional, electronic and tissue tags after receiving final approval last week from the Department of Agriculture. The firm joins Mullinahone Co-op and Cormac Tagging as approved suppliers.

Datamars has entered the market at prices below those of market leader Mullinahone and broadly similar to Cormac Tagging.

Datamars’ visual and tissue tag set is priced at €2.68 including VAT and the 38c ICBF contribution. Its tissue tag and electronic set is priced at €3.95 including VAT and ICBF contribution. Its applicator is priced at €21.90 and the company is giving a free applicator for orders of 100 tags or more.

Datamars Agri is based at Newlands Cross, Dublin. Its cattle tags, including the Typifix tissue tag, are already on sale in Northern Ireland through its sister company QuickTag Ltd. Datamars Agri is part of Datamars SA, a large company operating globally in the identification of farm animals, pets and even identification of textiles. The firm’s global headquarters is in Bedano in Switzerland. It has 11 subsidiaries, including QuickTag in Northern Ireland, three factories and a large network of distributors.

Datamars SA has not had a base in the Republic of Ireland before but has now linked with Irish firm Celtic Diagnostics to form Datamars Agri.