Behind the scenes at the global home of Kerrygold butter

For more than 60 years, Kerrygold butter has occupied a special place in the hearts and homes of consumers around the world. First launched in the UK in 1962, the brand has grown to become Ireland’s most successful food export, with over 11m packs of butter and cheese sold globally each week, all produced in Ireland from the milk of Irish grass-fed cows.

Best known for its range of grass-fed butter products, Kerrygold is a market leader in many major international markets. Before those products reach shopping baskets and grocery store shelves globally, they start out here at Kerrygold Park – our state-of-the-art butter manufacturing facility located in Mitchelstown, Co. Cork in Ireland – the global home of Kerrygold butter.

First opened in 2016 (following an original investment of €38m) to become the first central home of Kerrygold butter production – previously Kerrygold products were produced at multiple locations across Ireland – Kerrygold Park has since doubled in size and capacity, with a €40m expansion project completed last year.

The growth of the facility, responding to the growing global demand for Kerrygold, has represented a significant step in Ornua’s plans to grow Kerrygold into Ireland’s first €2bn food brand, and deliver on the co-operative’s everyday mission of driving value for the Irish dairy sector.

Today, Kerrygold Park is a world-leading butter production and packing facility, at 65,000 square feet, capable of processing 5.6m litres of cream to produce up to 1m retail packs per day.

A new chapter for Kerrygold Park

The ‘new’ Kerrygold Park benefits from cutting-edge processing technology and infrastructure, including two state-of-the-art butter churns which are used to turn cream, supplied by Ornua’s Member Co-operatives – Irish dairy processors – into butter.

Thanks to the richness of the milk that Irish grass-fed dairy cows produce, and the high standards of milk production that Irish dairy farmers uphold, the butter we produce is consistent in quality and matchless in terms of taste and texture.

From our two churns, the butter makes its way to a total of 10 packing lines which enable the production of a range of over 50 different product formats that are exported to over 60 markets globally.

Servicing this wide range of markets, retailer requirements and consumer preferences, requires brilliant agility, focus and most importantly, teamwork.

People and processes

We manage through complexity thanks to our people and our processes. Our team are collectively focused on delivering the highest levels of product quality, customer service and supply chain excellence. We achieve this together through a culture of continuous improvement and ensuring that we harness technology to deliver operational excellence every time.

As a result of the expansion of Kerrygold Park, we added a number of new permanent roles bringing the team to 180 people across production, supply chain, quality, in addition to functions like finance, commercial, sustainability and HR.

Not only are we employing more people, but the level of these roles has increased as colleagues are working with the latest advanced processing technology and robotic handling equipment.

Utilising a wide range of automation technologies helps increase efficiencies, while developing talent and deploying human resources in the most effective areas. The benefit is a better employee experience in addition to ensuring we are at the cutting-edge in terms of service delivery for our customers.

Built to last

Kerrygold Park is ultimately strategically located with operational efficiency and long-term sustainability in mind. We are ‘next door’ to one of Ornua’s member co-operative suppliers, Dairygold, which gives us a direct link to one of our largest cream suppliers and the benefits of a short supply chain. Fresh cream is supplied via a pipeline running directly between the two sites, significantly reducing the need for loading and offloading tankers on both sites.

Our operation is about best-in-class efficiency at every stage, including in energy and resource consumption. We have invested in cutting edge automation to optimise efficiency, while the treatment of wastewater in an anaerobic digester located in front of site, along with an onsite rainwater harvesting system, forms part of our ongoing commitment to circular principles.

From a production perspective, our team play a hands-on role in the development, trial and roll-out of packaging types and formats in collaboration with the wider business and in line with Ornua’s group-wide ambition to improve sustainability of on-shelf packaging.

Like any function area, having the right personnel is key and our sustainability talent at Kerrygold Park, and indeed Ornua, is growing. We have a newly appointed head of ESG for Kerrygold Park, working collaboratively with Ornua’s Group sustainability team, to drive this agenda forward.

Social sustainability is also very much part of this programme. As a major employer in the region with strong links within the local community, Kerrygold Park is committed to positive social impact through initiatives including partnerships with the Mitchelstown Community First Responders Group, and FoodCloud, an Irish social enterprise which combats food waste and loss.

Nurturing talent at all levels

Ornua’s approach to attracting and retaining the best people is to foster a values-based culture in which they can thrive - values that represent what we stand for and what is important to us.

We put great emphasis on creating a positive and inclusive workplace environment. We do this through a suite of support policies, designed to make jobs work for our people. This includes hybrid working, part time working, paid maternity leave, paid second parents leave, fertility and IVF, surrogacy leave, miscarriage leave and employee assistance programme. These policies ensure our people, whatever their needs, feel supported throughout the many stages of life’s journey.

We want to give people the tools to grow and succeed, whether they are at the early stage of their career or a more experienced level. We have a total four graduates in the Kerrygold Park team, two of whom we welcomed in September. Working across a wide range of functional teams such as production, operational excellence, technical, supply chain and Health & Safety, our graduate trainees gain hands-on, practical knowledge of the operation, with dedicated mentorship guiding them through their growth journey with Kerrygold Park.

We also work closely with local universities, University College Cork and the University of Limerick, to facilitate practical learning through internship opportunities, in addition to a dedicated apprenticeship programme and work-placement programme with local second-level schools in the area.

For those at leadership levels within our business, Ornua’s dedicated people development programmes, created in partnership with third-level providers, give colleagues opportunities to upskill and gain accreditations along the way. We are a busy facility, but it is important that people are afforded the opportunity to step away from the day-to-day, gain valuable knowledge, develop their thinking, and bring those experiences back into the business.

Collaborating to innovate

We are proud of the reach of the Kerrygold brand but remain very ambitious for its future growth. Together with our global brand and innovation teams, consumer and category insights, and the commercial, manufacturing and logistics teams based here at Kerrygold Park, we collaborate to innovate.

Kerrygold Park is where a lot of that collaboration and innovation intersects. Luckily for us, we get to play an end-to-end role in this process, from early-stage concept development to final stage testing and seeing finished product coming down the line.  

Establishing high calibre cross functional teams enables us to work hand-in-glove, seamlessly linking the innovation funnel to our manufacturing operation. In doing so, at an operational level, we are able to ensure that market expectations are delivered in terms of product quality, functionality and customer service. While we can also maximise supply chain efficiencies and any capital investment required to deliver a new product or packaging format.

Since 2020, Kerrygold Park has launched 12 new products which now account for 35% of our retail packet volume in 2024, demonstrating the important role innovation has in delivering branded growth. Successful launches include a wide range of products from a bespoke display ready case for the Club Style Retailer in the U.S., a multi pack of butter sticks in a carton, a premium blended butter with Avocado Oil and the recent addition of a 200g Spreadable tub in the home market.

A bright future

Our team take great pride in living and breathing both the history and core values of the Kerrygold brand every day. This is perhaps best illustrated by our new interactive Kerrygold Customer Experiential Centre established as part of our latest site expansion. This new facility serves as a hub for welcoming international customers and visitors from across the world and allows us to champion all that is great about the brand and the Irish dairy farmers whose grass-fed milk is used to produce it.

As we continue to innovate and diversify our product range, our customer experiential centre will provide us with the platform to showcase new and exciting brand innovations and collaborate more closely with our colleagues and our customers.

In summary, the significant investment made in the ‘new’ Kerrygold Park is paying dividends. By increasing our production capacity and capabilities, leveraging the latest processing and supply chain technologies and by harnessing and developing the talent and commitment of our people, we believe we are ultimately well placed to support the brand’s long term strategic growth goals across the globe.

In other news, Diageo has laid out plans to demolish the Talisker at Carbost distillery in an application submitted to the Highland Council.