Mullinahone Co-op’s recently appointed general manager, James Manley, is extremely passionate about the business and is committed to offering a top-class customer service to all its tag customers.
After stepping into the role in 2019, James has been working hard to get the tag division of the co-op up to speed with the latest innovations and technologies in animal identification.
The son of a retired dairy farmer, James previously worked with Dairypower, as the sales manager for Ireland and the UK.
In this role, he was instrumental in bringing the Waikato milking parlour to Ireland – a leading choice of milking parlours by Irish dairy farmers today.
Stepping into his new role, James admits he knew very little about tags, but since joining Mullinahone, he has become somewhat of an expert of the tag industry in a short space of time – but admits that every day he is learning something new.
He has also brought a whole new approach to Mullinahone Co-op with a huge focus on the customer. He said: “from order to delivery, customer support is key in my view.”
Striving to improve efficiencies at Mullinahone, James has revamped the co-op’s website to ensure it is as user-friendly as possible, for all their customers.
He has also simplified the Bovine viral diarrhea (BVD) sample collection and discovered that Allflex currently have the only International Committee for Animal Recording (ICAR) approved tissue tag on the market – a key competitive advantage for the co-op.
Mullinahone Co-op
Formed in 1893, Mullinahone Co-op is one of the oldest co-ops in Ireland and is comprised of three divisions – including its agricultural wholesale business, the Compsey creamery, and the tag side of the business.
Today, Mullinahone’s creamery is still fully operational making a range of fresh dairy products which are mainly supplied to the food service and hospitality sector.
The tag end of the business came in 1995, and since then Mullinahone Co-op has become Ireland’s number one seller of both official EID (electronic ID) tags and visual tags for both cattle and sheep.
The relationship with Allflex stems back to the early 1970s when Mullinahone’s then general manager, Jerry Barret, saw an opportunity to improve farm management using the Allflex plastic tags.
Allflex is the world’s leader in the design, development, manufacturing, and delivery of solutions for animal identification, monitoring and traceability – offering Irish farmers a globally recognised tag.
After a trip to New Zealand, Barret began importing Allflex tags and selling them on the Irish market.
Interestingly Barret also imported the first New Zealand milking machine into Ireland, the Racuru milking machine, and developed one of the first automatic cluster removers (ACRs) on the market.
Not long into his new role, James got the opportunity to travel to France to visit the Allflex tag production facility.
He commented: “This was a fantastic experience, to see the amount of automation being used to produce the Allflex tags.
“The whole tag production process began with the touch of a button with very little human interaction.
“This gave me great reassurance; seeing the high standard that the tags were made to and the significant focus on quality.”
MSD Animal Health acquired Antelliq, the parent company of Allflex, which James said has given Mullinahone co-op a huge advantage because it has given him huge confidence in the support that’s available to them.
The future
In the future, James hopes to add further products to the company’s portfolio – particularly in the area of monitoring technology.
“Any new technologies coming on-stream in the industry; we will certainly be looking at them closely to see can we work them into our business in the future.
“The tags will always remain our core business, but whatever new technologies come up to make farmers more efficient, we will be eager to get involved.
“Down the road I want to make Mullinahone co-op the one stop shop for farmers for all monitoring technologies,” he added.
Competition
For the whole month of July, Mullinahone co-op have 200 MSD Animal Health Heptavac P vaccination guns up for grabs.
To be in with the chance to win all you need to do is purchase 100 sheep tags or more.
You will then be entered into the draw, and each week throughout the month of July 50 people will be chosen as a winner.
For more on Mullinahone co-op visit their website, Mullinahone Co-operative Dairy Society (mullinahonecoop.ie).
