A professor of marketing at University College Dublin’s (UCD’s) Michael Smurfit Graduate Business School has said “the idea that a retailer is making a tonne of money or a tonne of profit on beef is not true”.
Prof. Damien McLoughlin – who teaches an Origin Green ambassadors class for the Bord Bia Programme – was speaking on RTÉ’s Morning Ireland and said: “The first thing you tell people in agri-business is that retailers use beef for footfall.
“So the idea that a retailer is making a tonne of money or a tonne of profit on beef is not true.
They use beef for footfall and there are no brands in beef. You go into any supermarket any place in the world and there is no name on it other than the retailers name and people will queue for cheap beef.
Continuing, McLoughlin said: “What makes this beef situation so really very difficult is there is not a huge margin somewhere being gained by somebody.”
The professor continued: “Retailers don’t make money on beef, processors – the average market in the processing industry over time is 0%.
“There is no international investment in the processing in any country and so the situation in beef I don’t think is going to get any better.”
Concluding, McLoughlin added that he believes: “There will be a shake out [of the sector] post Brexit no doubt.”