The controversy over Glanbia’s Truly Grass Fed cheese range came to the fore at the ICMSA AGM in Limerick last Friday.

Farmers asked Ornua CEO John Jordan if the company had become complacent and missed a marketing opportunity by allowing Glanbia to snatch an opportunity in the US.

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The CEO pointed out that Kerrygold butter remained the second highest top-selling butter in the US, and said that “Kerrygold isn’t just a butter brand, it’s a dairy brand”.

It also came to light that Ornua and Glanbia had discussed the idea of the Truly Grass Fed range over a year ago.

In a letter to Glanbia suppliers seen by the Irish Farmers Journal, the processor writes that they approached Ornua with the suggestion of the Truly Grass Fed range but Ornua “declined the opportunity”.

“Glanbia and ourselves started those conversations about 14 months ago,” John Jordan said, adding that at the time he’d been part of the meetings.

“We mutually agreed not to proceed under the one umbrella.”

He said there were now two issues at hand in regard to the matter.

Governance

The first was board governance, and any issue managing a conflict of interest between Ornua and Glanbia would be determined by the board of Ornua.

He said the second issue involved the fact that Glanbia had now become a competitor to Ornua.

“The launch of Truly Grass Fed is just the launch of another competitor for us in the US market,” Jordan said.

“We’re absolutely confident that Kerrygold will continue to grow in the US.”

However, farmers pointed out that they had invested heavily over the years in the Ornua brand and they did not want to see the market share of Irish dairy produce in the US split between Irish dairy processors.

“There’s only one way to compete in the market and that’s to cut your margin,” farmer Ger Quain said. “It won’t affect John Jordan’s income but it’ll affect the man or woman who’s getting up to milk cows in the morning. It’s a race to the bottom that needs to be stopped.”