Irish Dairy Board

Irish Dairy Board
An Bord Bainne

Car advertising Kerrygold Butter in Denver
Type	A co-operative enterprise
Industry	Food retail
Predecessor(s)	Butter Marketing Committee
Founded	1961 (1961)
Founder(s)	Government of Ireland
Headquarters	Grattan House, Mount Street Dublin, Ireland
Area served	Asia, Europe, Middle East, North America, Africa, China
Revenue	€2 billion[1]
Employees	3,300
Website	www.idb.ie

The Irish Dairy Board (Irish: An Bord Bainne) is a co-operative enterprise in Ireland. The firm owns the Kerrygold butter brand.^[2]

The Board was established by an act of the Oireachtas, the Dairy Produce Marketing Act 1961,^[3] and replaced the earlier Butter Marketing Committee. It was created to centralize the overseas marketing of Irish dairy products so as to achieve economies of scale and greater brand recognition. At the time of the Board's creation, the European Economic Community's market was closed to Irish butter, and the United Kingdom market limited Irish imports by an import quota. Irish agricultural products were usually treated as a commodity and shipped in bulk to be processed and packaged by British companies and sold under British brands.^{[citation needed]}

The name Kerrygold was selected to evoke "farming, naturalness, goodness and above all quality milk" as well as a sense of Irishness.^[4] In October 1962, the Board successfully test-launched the Kerrygold brand in the Winterhill area of North West England.

When Ireland joined the EEC in 1973, the Board began expanding its presence to continental Europe, beginning with the North Rhine-Westphalia state of Germany. By 1982, Kerrygold had national distribution in Germany.

Awards

The Irish Dairy Board was awarded Exporter of the Year by the Irish Exporters in 2010.^[5]

References