Munster Cattle Breeding Group has appointed Kevin Coffey as its new General Manager to succeed Dr Pat Mulvihill who retires later this year.

Coffey joins the Group after having worked for the past 10 years with Aurivo Co-op, most recently as Commercial Manager, Agribusiness.

He previously served in a number of management roles with Aurivo, which included farm services, operations and supply chain responsibilities.

Coffey began his career in agribusiness with SWS developing farm advisory services and ranks a Nuffield Scholarship in 2007 and experience working on a 1,000-cow dairy farm in New Zealand among his achievements.

A native of Tipperary, Coffee is a graduate from University College Dublin in Agriculture Science and holds an MSc in Management Practice from Trinity College.

Munster Cattle Breeding Group was established in 2007 with the merger of Dairygold, Kerry Agri and SEL cattle breeding services business, with the intention of being a one stop shop for herd owners by offering a wide range of cattle breeding and allied services.

The Group also provided funding and conducts research at UCD’s €2.3m dairy research farm at Lyons – a partnership between academia and industry – as well as Dairymaster, Devenish Nutrition, FBD, Glanbia, Munster Cattle Breeding Group, Progressive Genetics and the Irish Holstein Friesian Association.

Last May, the National Cattle Breeding Centre’s (NCBC) new state of the art laboratory in Naas was opened by Minister for Agriculture, Simon Coveney.

It is a joint venture between Progressive Genetics Ireland and the Munster Cattle Breeding Group.