Kerry Group plc

diversified their income streams.

all of those businesses, Glamby is another one going into the protein and supplement business, all of, and as have Kerry Group, and they've gone into different geographies.

I mean, is that what they need to do? I think they need to be competitive.

They need to be looking 10 years out.

Did the surnames just get mixed up along the way? The popular brand Cheese Strings, sold under Strings and Things Masterbrand, is Irish manufacturer.

They are made by Kerry Dairy Ireland, a division of the Irish Kerry Group, produced in Charleville County Cork since they launched in 1996.

Yeah, no, I think that my auntie's brother is from Charleville.

Or cousin or something.

We then asked, "Where did the 20 million go?" And we discovered that three million went to Kerry Airport.

Kerry Airport was chaired by a guy called Paddy Moriarty, former chief executive of the ESB, um, and, uh, he was working, at that time, the Kerry Group was controlled by, by, uh, Dennis Brosnan, leading polit- a leading businessman.

Another three million had gone to the Milf, uh, uh, Millstreet, uh, uh, uh-

Equestrian

Can you give me an example of a time where you came across a business where the culture wasn't healthy or where there wasn't that interdepartmental understanding and cooperation there that might have been getting in the way of the quality of food?

I can't think of an exact example, but I suppose sometimes you go into a place, especially a place that maybe has people that are there a wee bit at a time, or there's people coming in new, you know, so the teams that hasn't gelled as such, you know, so really it's getting an understanding of what the other person does you know and I know like back in thinking like when I was you know when I was back in Kerry Foods in Shillelagh you know as a quality supervisor you know I remember there like you would like part of that education we bring in say someone operations or let's go on a walk you know let's go and see what I'm looking at so you're kind of getting this is what I'm seeing from my eyes and way that you know now the same exercise can be done in terms of production you know but it's kind of bringing the understanding and the education because I can come in someplace and have a clipboard and say oh you can't do that you can't do that you know walk out that's adding no value to that organization really that the value is understanding okay this is why i'm asking this this is why you know uh so it's getting that education piece i think helps you know in in getting a teamwork to whether it's getting the understanding of the overall how how are the jigsaw pieces fit together really you know yeah

I don't know, they would take their food safety particularly seriously.

That's probably the reason you were there.

We'll get on to some of that in a little bit.

But when you think about it, One thing that struck me, I went to a talk, it was Mairead McGuinness, the former commissioner, was interviewing Edmund Scanlon from Kerry Group, the head of Kerry Group.

And he was talking about the practicalities of AI and how they have embraced it.

It's now one of the main development areas in one area around supply chain and supplying products.

Yes.

And that is a big problem.

But what I thought was interesting is that this is a big globally listed company in Kerry Group.

And while they have risk and audit committees and they've REMCO committees and they've all these big committees that are responsible for overseeing the organization, some time ago they set up an AI committee, which is leading out on AI.

Well, I spoke with Niamh Smith, the government's minister for AI, and she said that she's acutely aware of issues in creative industries, and that she also takes, uh, the issue of copyright particularly seriously.

And she also told me that how workers are affected will be an integral part of discussions at this summit, whether that's Google, OpenAI, or the Kerry Group.

All of those companies will be talking about the i- i- impact on the workforce.

I mean, there is a- an acute focus on competitiveness, on resilience, uh, and on, on security, uh, throughout the presidency.

But yeah, we often laugh at that one.

Yeah, they're like the Kerry Group sponsors.

They've been our one and only sponsor since the inception of sponsorship.

They've been very good to us, yeah.

Glanbia, for example, uh, last year it had revenues of, of just shy of $4 billion, and about half of that was coming from w- its performance nutrition division, w- which is basically protein, brands like Optimum Nutrition, uh, which, which are huge globally as well.

We also have, uh, Kerry Group and, and Ornua also.

We know them for their kind of consumer brands, like Ornua makes Kerrygold, but a big part of the business is also the fact that they, they, they sell protein as well.

Um, and, uh, and yeah, it's, it's from...