The chief executive of Kerry Group Edmond Scanlon has said that there is “no fear” of the company forgetting its agricultural roots.
He made the comments in response to questions from shareholders at the company’s Annual General Meeting (AGM) in Tralee, Co. Kerry today (Thursday, May 2).
Over the past 50 years Kerry Group has evolved from a small dairy company established in north Kerry to a global multinational which had revenue of €8 billion last year.
Earlier today, the company reported a decrease in revenue of 9.9% for the first three months, or first quarter (Q1), of 2024 due to subdued consumer demand.
Kerry Group
In recent years Kerry Group has placed all of the assets of its dairy business into a standalone entity, called Dairy Ireland.
It includes milk processing facilities in Listowel, Co. Kerry and Newmarket and Charleville in Co. Cork.
Several shareholders at the AGM focused on the future of the dairy division and whether it could be sold.
In April 2021, talks between Kerry Co-op and Kerry Group on a potential dairy business deal were suspended after over 18 months of discussions.
Kerry Co-op is the largest shareholder in Kerry Group with an 11.4% stake in the company worth around €2 billion.
One shareholder directly asked the Kerry Group chief executive: “Is Dairy Ireland for sale?”.
“As a public company every part of Kerry is for sale is the reality of this.
“Anyone can go out and buy shares and own a piece of Kerry, so we’re always for sale as an organisation,” Scanlon replied.
“It’s important as a public company to recognise that we’re always open minded in terms of how we can maximise value for all shareholders.
“Making acquisitions, divesting businesses is something that we’ve done since 2017. We’ve been extremely active and I would imagine we’d continue to be active,” he added.
Dairy
Another shareholder told the meeting that he hoped Kerry Group would never sell its dairy division and would not forget “the people who started it all”.
In response, Scanlon said that the Dairy Ireland business is “one of the best dairy businesses in the world”.
“The facilities within this business are amongst 137 that we have globally. The governance and oversight of those faculties sit with myself and the board of directors that are around this table.
“These facilities are extremely well invested in, they meet the highest standards of regulatory authorities, they meet the highest standards of every one of our customers who audit these facilities on an ongoing basis.
“The products that come out of these facilities go all over the world,” he said.
Kerry Group is set to officially launch a €30 million investment development at the Cheestrings facility in Charleville Co. Cork in June.
“I don’t think there’s any fear of any of us forgetting where we came from. I do think it’s fair to say that we are extremely proud of the Dairy Ireland business, we’ve an outstanding team there,” Scanlon said.
The Kerry Group chief executive also urged any farmers having fodder or feed issues due to the recent poor weather to contact the Kerry Agribusiness team for help.