Aldi Ireland has expanded its partnership with Dawn Meats, signing a new five-year contract worth €125 million with the meat processor that will add six new lines of product to the German discounter’s range.
The deal, worth €25 million each year, will see Dawn Meats recruit an additional 15 staff as it increases its supply to Aldi by 35 per cent.
Founded in 1980 by the Queally family with their business partner Dan Browne, Dawn Meats is now one of the largest meat processors in Europe, with sites in 12 countries including 11 plants in the Republic.
It is also one of Aldi’s longest-standing suppliers, having supplied the multiple for the past 14 years.
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Colin Breslin, managing director of buying and services at Aldi Ireland, welcomed the new contract with Dawn Meats. “This continued partnership ensures that our customers can enjoy the best Irish beef, sourced sustainably, and produced to the highest standards.”
Aldi sold virtually no Irish-made produce when it first arrived here in 1999. Today, about half of the products it stocks are made in the Republic, and Aldi works with a network of more than 300 domestic suppliers, spending an estimated €1.1 billion locally last year.
The German group has ambitious expansion plans for the market here and wants to open another 50 shops in the Republic. “I think if we look at our market share in Dublin, our store number is a long way off,” Aldi Ireland and UK managing director Niall O’Connor told The Irish Times earlier this month. “I’m on record as saying that. I could see 25 to 30 of the next 50 coming in the Dublin or the Greater Dublin Area.”
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Aldi Ireland boasts revenues of €2.3 billion, employing some 4,650 staff across the State and reaching more than 70 million customers annually.
Profits at Aldi Ireland, which published its financial performance for the first time in 2021, more than halved to €17.1 million in 2022, according to its most recent set of results despite an increase in sales of more than 1 per cent.
Welcoming the agreement, Minister for Agriculture Charlie McConalogue said it indicated the “scale of Aldi’s commitment to the Irish beef sector” and to Irish suppliers more generally.
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