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Last night (Tuesday, 3rd October), more than 600 senior executives gathered at the IGD Awards to raise a toast to the food and industry’s achievements over the last 12 months. ABP UK received the award for its anti-modern slavery campaign. According to ABP, it’s estimated that at least 20,000 victims of modern slavery live and work in the UK. ABP has launched its own anti-modern slavery campaign to help its people and partners understand the issue, tackle it at the root cause and prevent any form of exploitation entering its workplace. Vanessa Di Cuffa, UK People Change Director for ABP said: “I am absolutely delighted to receive this award on behalf of all colleagues across our UK business. Our campaign has focused on raising awareness and ensuring all of our colleagues and supply chain partners have a full understanding of this issue so that they are equipped to understand the issue and confident to deal with it, in any of its forms. There is absolutely no place for any exploitation in the work place and I hope that our work, which is ongoing, will go some way towards tackling this problem”. Steve Godwin, Head of External and Government Affairs, Danone, said: “ABP UK’s Anti-Modern Slavery initiative is truly pioneering. It focuses on an issue for too long ignored in our society and has the ability to bring about real, country-wide change. “It is innovative and different, and has achieved measurable, positive results for the business. It has positively impacted the lives of its workers on both a professional and personal level. “This initiative has the potential to influence the way that we approach employability throughout the supply chain and especially in the traditionally tough environment of the manufacturing world.  I look forward to learning more about the impacts on ABP itself and on the world around it.” Joanne Denney-Finch, IGD Chief Executive, said: “For more than 25 years, the IGD Awards have celebrated the achievements of our truly world-class industry. These are hotly contested awards and this year the bar was set as high as ever. Yet again we received a very large number of entries, which is testament to the innovative, high-quality work taking place across our industry. “We’re living through challenging times, yet our industry never fails to impress in its determination to continue surprising and delighting shoppers. Many congratulations to all our winners and finalists.” About the IGD Awards The winners of the IGD Awards were selected by a panel of industry experts, including representatives from IGD and companies from across the food and grocery supply chain. For the first time ever in 2017, three awards were voted for by shoppers – the IGD Food-to-Go Operator of the Year, the IGD Online Retailer of the Year and the IGD Retailer of the Year – through IGD’s ShopperVista service, the barometer of the British grocery shopper. IGD is an education and training charity for the food and grocery industry that undertakes research for the benefit of the public. For a full list of the winners of the IGD Awards 2017, please visit igd.com/awards

ABP Ireland has won seven awards including two gold and four silver awards, at the 10th annual Blas na hEireann, the Irish Food Awards for quality Irish produce on the island of Ireland.  The awards were held in Dingle on 30th September. Blas na hEireann is the biggest blind tasting of Irish produce. ABP Food Group submitted entries to all categories in the beef section: striploin steak; rib eye steak; fillet steak and beef other- meatballs /burgers. In total, seven of ABP’s products qualified for the finals and all seven picked up awards. Research has proven that the Blas accreditation has the highest recognition amongst Irish consumers. For this year’s competition, there were 2,500 entries overall in all products across all categories. Results of the ABP Products across the four beef categories: Striploin: · Bronze – Specially Selected Tipperary Dry Aged Black Angus 30 day matured  Striploin · Silver – Specially Selected Black Angus 28 day matured Striploin Fillet: ·  Silver – Specially Selected Black Angus 28 day matured Fillet Rib Eye: ·  Gold – Specially Selected Tipperary Dry Aged Black Angus 30 day matured Rib Eye ·  Silver – Specially Selected Black Angus 28 day matured Rib Eye Beef Other – Meatballs/Burgers: ·  Gold- Butchers Choice 3% low fat Lean burger gluten free ·  Silver – Platinum Prime Sirloin Steak Burger Gluten Free Commenting on the Group’s success at Blas na hEireann, Eoin Ryan, Sales Manager, ABP said:  “We are absolutely delighted to have won these indigenous awards. The judging process for these awards is driven and guided by taste. This highlights the quality of our Ultra Tender process which currently sees ABP beef served in over 200 Michelin starred restaurants across the world. The company has already been acknowledged at previous awards for our quality food produce and this is a further endorsement to the hard work and quality produced by the ABP team in Cahir.”

Initial results from the Gene Ireland Dairy Beef Programme, a major multi-year collaborative research study involving ABP Food Group, the Irish Cattle Breeding Federation (ICBF) and Teagasc indicates that improved genetics in the dairy herd can improve carcass weight and feed intake for the beef farmer without compromising calving difficulty or gestation length for the dairy farmer. The first animals have been slaughtered with initial analysis suggesting a difference of between €150 and €200 per slaughtered animal between individual AI sires. The research is being conducted at a 280 acre ABP Research and Demonstration Farm in County Wexford which is set up to resemble a typical beef farm and is worked by an experienced beef farming family living on the farm. The main aims of the study are to: Improve the efficiency and profitability of dairy herd sourced beef production. Develop a Dairy Beef selection index to maximise dairy and beef on farm performance. Identify the most suitable beef bull genetics for crossing on dairy herds. Genetically improve main breeds supplying beef bulls to dairy herds. Dr Andrew Cromie, Technical Director, ICBF, commented: “The programme is now delivering real benefits for the beef and dairy industries, by helping ICBF accurately identify the beef sires that have proven traits for use on the dairy herd in the future. All of the data collected on the participating AI sires, including their progeny, is publically available on the ICBF website, thereby ensuring that farmers and the wider industry can have absolute confidence regarding the accuracy and independence of the genetic evaluations being generated as part of the study.” Chief Operations Officer at ABP Finbarr McDonnell, said the findings are as a result of a culmination of three years collaborative work between ABP, ICBF and Teagasc. “These are the first set of results from this multi-year initiative and they already represent significant success. Having a research and demonstration farm has allowed us to consistently monitor and record valuable data on all aspects of animal development right through from calf to slaughter. The farm is a typical Irish beef farm, which ensures today’s findings are relevant in a broader context. These findings are now available to farmers through ICBF and Teagasc so that they can make an informed decision when it comes to choosing sires for the dairy herd.” Padraig French, Head of Livestock Research at Teagasc Moorpark, said: “The ongoing expansion of the national dairy herd is significantly increasing the supply of beef x dairy calves and these are becoming the dominant supply of prime beef from Irish grass based beef production. The decisions made by dairy farmers when selecting beef bulls to use on their dairy herd has a profound effect on the overall efficiency of the calf to beef enterprise. We need to ensure that dairy farmers have available to them sires that can meet their requirements for short gestation and easy calving but also have good terminal traits for the beef farmers that rear those calves.”

For the fourth consecutive year, ABP Food Group will sponsor the special Farm Safety award at BTYSTE. The company is calling on secondary school students with a keen interest in Farm Safety to enter a project on the issue for next year’s BT Young Scientist Expo. Students should register their expressions of interest by 25th September by logging onto the BT Young Scientist 2018 website. The “ABP Farm Safety Award” recognises projects which focus on either improving safety on farms or help educate people about the dangers on farms. ABP hopes that the category will encourage students from both farming and non-farming backgrounds to learn more about farm safety and investigate issues that affect farms today. Last year’s ABP Farm Safety project was won by Jack Nagle, from Killorglin Community College in Kerry with a ‘Tractor Safe Lock’ project. Martin Kane, Managing Director ABP Ireland, said: “Recent studies have shown that farming is Ireland’s most dangerous occupation. Through this sponsorship, ABP Food Group wants to increase awareness particularly amongst young people about the dangers on our farms and finding solutions to these dangers. The farm safety prize is open to all secondary school students who enter a Farm Safety Project for next year’s competition. We would encourage anyone who is interested in helping find solutions to the safety issues on Irish farms to apply.” ABP Food Group will also have a farm safety zone at the exhibition where students and visitors will have the opportunity to pledge their support to making farms a safer place. The BT Young Scientist & Technology Exhibition is now in its 54th year and is one of the largest and longest running STEM events in the world. The theme for BTYSTE 2018 is “it starts here” highlighting and celebrating the role the exhibition can play in captivating a love for science, technology, engineering and mathematics. BTYSTE 2018 will take place in the RDS, Dublin from 10th -13th January 2018.

The ABP sponsored Iverk Show took place in County Kilkenny recently. The show is Ireland’s oldest one day event and attracted over 20,000 visitors. Taoiseach Leo Varadkar officially open the show