At the recent Agromek exhibition in Denmark, Peter Thomas Keaveney caught up with James Maloney from Enterprise Ireland and Paul Quinn from Mastek to talk about how the show was going for the Irish exhibitors and how valuable the market is to the Irish agricultural engineering sector.

Agromek is the main agricultural exhibition in the Nordic region and takes place at the MCH Exhibition centre in Herning, which is in central Denmark.

Although, historically a biennial show, it has been four years since the last event. This year, after a welcome return, the show saw some 45,015 visitors and over 542 exhibitors in attendance.

James Maloney, Enterprise Ireland

James Maloney from Enterprise Ireland

James explained that Enterprise Ireland was at the show to help support and grow the presence of Irish companies in the Scandinavian market.

He said that the Scandinavian farmers have been very impressed with the design and build quality of the Irish machinery. He added that Enterprise Ireland estimates that the Scandinavian region is worth up to between €6m and €7m to the Irish agri engineering and agri-tech sector.

With an estimated 11 Irish manufacturers present in the region, Enterprise Ireland facilitated five Irish machinery manufacturers to exhibit on its stand at the show.

This included Cashel's, Wakely Engineering, Mastek, Quality Tractor Parts and Dromone Engineering. Meanwhile, Easyfix, McHale, Major and Keltec were all represented by their Danish importers/distributors.

Paul Quinn, Mastek

Paul Quinn from Mastek

Paul said the show has been very good and was quite successful. He noted that, unusually for this type of a show, he sold three 12m dribble bars to a farmer in Slovenia, which will be retrofitted to three tankers he bought new in Italy last year.

In addition, he also has quite a few other solid leads to follow up on. Norway would be Mastek’s best market in the Nordic region, with his company being the second-most popular brand for slurry equipment.

Paul described Norway as being like Ireland - there’s a lot of small farms, many of which are wet or very hilly. He also used the show to catch up with his Finnish dealer whom he didn’t see since pre-COVID.

Meanwhile, he said that Denmark is a more difficult market for his products, as it’s all big tankers and trailing shoes, with his 12m trailing shoe being just about big enough and anything else being too small.

After the UK and New Zealand, the Nordics would be the Cavan firm's next most popular market, accounting for 8% to 9% of Mastek’s production. He concluded by saying he definitely sees more potential for growth in the region.

You can listen in for more below.