Business News

Record sales figures for Kerrygold butter in Germany

By Business & Finance
29 January 2014

The Irish Dairy Board achieved record sales figures of € 316mn in 2013 in the German market with its Kerrygold butter brand.

Speaking at the Annual General Meeting of the German-Irish Chamber of Industry and Commerce in Dublin on Wednesday, the managing director of the Irish Dairy Board in Germany Gisbert Kügler said: “This equates to over 200 million packs of butter in over 23,000 outlets each year – enough butter to stretch 15 times from Dublin to Berlin.”

Kerrygold is the number one butter brand in Germany with a market share of 17 % and a branded share of more than 50 %.

At the German-Irish Chamber’s Annual General Meeting Frank Mee, finance director at Dublin-based Allianz Worldwide Care, was elected as the new president for 2014. He emphasised the importance of German-Irish economic relations. “Following Ireland’s return to the financial markets it is vital that economic performance matches our expectations as well as international expectations. The trade links with Germany will play a crucial part and our Chamber will work on numerous topics in the coming months to further strengthen these links, for example with a view to collaboration in the specific areas of energy efficiency and environmental technology.”

Allianz Worldwide Care is Allianz Group’s international health insurance subsidiary. Frank Mee joined the company now known as Allianz Ireland in 1986 and served on the Board of management of that company for many years until 1999. He was instrumental in the decision by Allianz Group to base its international health insurance operation in Dublin in 1999. He is one of the founding directors of Allianz Worldwide Care, which today employs 830 staff and has filled the role of finance director from the outset in 1999.

Another topic high on the German-Irish Chamber’s agenda in 2014 is the Irish apprenticeship scheme, which has been reviewed by an independent group for the Department of Education. The Chamber’s CEO Ralf Lissek says: “We made a submission to the review group and are now looking forward to getting involved in the set-up of a broader apprenticeship scheme in Ireland which is no longer primarily focussed on the construction sector. This can make a major contribution to tackling youth unemployment in Ireland which currently stands at an unacceptable level of about 29%.”