{"id":614987,"date":"2026-08-01T10:34:16","date_gmt":"2026-08-01T10:34:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/614987\/"},"modified":"2026-08-01T10:34:16","modified_gmt":"2026-08-01T10:34:16","slug":"ornua-and-tirlan-at-loggerheads-over-us-butter-deal-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/614987\/","title":{"rendered":"Ornua and T\u00edrlan at loggerheads over US butter deal \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ornua<\/a>, owner of the \u20ac1 billion Kerrygold<\/a> brand, is facing what insiders describe as a fifth-column attack in the United States.<\/p>\n

T\u00edrlan<\/a>, one of Ornua\u2019s largest suppliers, has separately signed a deal with US retailer Costco to sell butter under Costco\u2019s private label Kirkland, placing it in direct competition with Kerrygold.<\/p>\n

T\u00edrlan\u2019s butter will also be priced at about $6 (\u20ac5) a kilogram, undercutting Kerrygold\u2019s equivalent.<\/p>\n

News of the deal has caused a ruckus in agri circles here, with farmers\u2019 groups warning it could trigger a pricing war.<\/p>\n

Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers\u2019 Association president John Drennan said Irish dairy farmers\u2019 \u201cfirst reaction would be astonishment that two Irish co-operatives appear to be following different \u2013 and potentially conflicting \u2013 strategies in international markets that could undermine farmer milk price in the short and long term\u201d. <\/p>\n

Irish dairy is a complex tapestry of businesses, with Ornua, formerly the Irish Dairy Board, sitting at the top. Its primary function is to market and sell Irish dairy produce abroad on behalf of leading co-ops here, the largest being T\u00edrlan. <\/p>\n

It has proved one of the great success stories of Irish industry, with Kerrygold becoming the first Irish food brand to eclipse \u20ac1 billion in annual sales, of which T\u00edrlan is the biggest beneficiary.<\/p>\n

T\u00edrlan evolved from Glanbia Co-op and now controls the dairy business formerly owned by Glanbia plc.<\/p>\n

\"\"What size does your pension actually need to be for a comfortable retirement?<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not the first time it has clashed with Ornua. It launched its own dairy brand, Truly Grass Fed, in the US in 2018 just when Ornua and Kerrygold were embroiled in a court case about their own grass-fed credentials.<\/p>\n

Ornua reported a 5 per cent jump in operating profits for last year despite what it described as \u201chighly challenging\u201d trading conditions in the US with \u201ctariff uncertainty<\/a>\u201d and food price inflation anchoring the market there.<\/p>\n

Ornua chief executive Conor Galvin has warned that Donald Trump\u2019s tariffs could cost the group up to \u20ac50 million a year.<\/p>\n

The last thing it needs is a price war with one of its own suppliers in a key market.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ornua, owner of the \u20ac1 billion Kerrygold brand, is facing what insiders describe as a fifth-column attack in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":614988,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[73],"tags":[79,2355,18,19,17,152117,193747,115265,384,1411],"class_list":["post-614987","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-cantillon","tag-eire","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-kerrygold","tag-ornua","tag-tirlan","tag-united-states","tag-us-tariffs"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/117019808900427673","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/614987","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=614987"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/614987\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/614988"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=614987"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=614987"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=614987"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}