Head of Drinks Ireland Cormac Healy said the opening of the brewery and announcement of a second brewery by Diageo was hugely positive for demand for malting barley markets, which he acknowledged are under pressure at the minute.

Speaking to the Irish Farmers Journal at the opening of the new Diageo brewery last week, Healy said it was a huge vote of confidence to have the brewery built in Ireland.

“There are challenges out there in the overall drinks sector globally. Beer is performing extremely well at the moment and, here, opening the new brewery today, but already plans in place for a further expansion, it’s really encouraging for the future.

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Healy said Guinness is driving demand, but Guinness 0.0 is hugely important as consumer trends change.

He noted while non-alcoholic drinks account for just 3% of the market here in Ireland, that figure is double digits in parts of Europe such as Spain and Portugal and zero-alcohol drinks production is growing by about 25% year on year.

He commented: “Clearly, Guinness as a brand and as a product is driving that demand, but hugely important is the development and the growth of Guinness 0.0 and we see that non-alcohol section of the market growing rapidly.”

Distilling

The Drinks Ireland boss said last year was particularly challenging on the distilling side with uncertainty and tariffs creating pressure in markets.

“We did see a significant period of last year where up to 90% of distilling capacity in the country was suspended given the turbulence that was in the markets due to the tariffs situation, but also probably some pressures in underlying market conditions in some big markets like the US.”

On Irish whiskey, he said: “We are just a small proportion of the overall brown spirits global market share and there’s huge ambition to grow. We’ve seen our production and exports rise to 16m cases from a couple of million a decade and a half ago.

“There’s great expectation that once we get through the current challenges that are in the market that we can continue to grow into the future and the kind of investments like this today and others that we’re seeing, for example on the spirits side and the whiskey side, are encouraging for future demand.”

On trade deals, he said India is a big one that we all talk about, noting that the tariff is at 150% and will move down to 75% and then 40% in the trade deal.

“That is a growing market, not the same margins as the US, but it is really important. It’s a growth market.”

He added that Australia and South America will be important markets into the future as well.

You can hear from Cormac Healy on this week’s Tillage Podcast.