Kerry Group Plc is a food manufacturing company that has its headquarters in Ireland. It supplies consumer food products to the markets of Ireland and in the whole of Europe.

History

Kerry Group was founded in Listowel, Ireland in the year 1972.  The company was originally a dairy co-operative, but it has grown significantly to become one of the world’s leaders when it comes to supplying food ingredients and consumer food products.

From 1974 to 1979, Kerry Group started to expand its milk business, following the trend of what other dairy co-operatives were doing at the time. Soon, the co-operative was producing close to a hundred million gallons of milk to supply its customers. In 1979, Ireland was selected as a pilot location for an eradication scheme for the Bovine disease. This affected Kerry Group as milk production was significantly decreased. As a result, 20% of the co-operative’s milk supply was lost. This led to the management’s decision to rely not solely on milk production to fuel the business. The leaders decided that it was time to diversify its operations and create more products.

With its acquisition of the Denny Pork & Savoury Products, Kerry Group was able to enter the area of convenience meats. In 1983, the company decided to put up headquarters in both the UK and USA. This is also the time that the Kerry Group entered the area of food ingredients specialists. Kerry Group was listed in the stock exchange (both London and Ireland) in 1986 as a Public Limited Company.

In 1988, Kerry Group acquired a major US company, Beatreme. This acquisition provided opportunities in several markets worldwide. In the succeeding years, Kerry Group continued to grow and expand its operations through a number of acquisitions, allowing it to have operations in countries like Canada, Brazil, Malaysia and Australia.

Currently, the company has operations in over 120 countries all over the world. It supplies more than 10,000 types of food ingredients, flavour products and food to its customers worldwide. Divisions of the Kerry Group include the Consumer Foods division, the Agribusiness & Dairies division and the Flavours and Bioscience division. Some of the company’s notable brands include Ballyfree, Calvita, Cheestrings, Coleraine, Dawn, Easi Singles, Galtee, Golden Olive, Homepride Flour, Lawsons, Mattesons, Mr. Brain’s, Porkinson, Richmond and Shaws.

Headquarters: Tralee,Ireland
Ownership Type: Public
Employees: 23,000
Geography: Europe, South America, New Zealand, North America, Australia, Asia
Demography: food-manufacturing companies, foodservice operators, retail food consumers

Brands

Denny®, Chestrings®, Wall’s®, Charleville®, Mattesons®, Galtee®, Richmond®, Porkinson®

Important links

Kerry Group Corporate Home Page
Products
Jobs and Careers
Kerry Group Contact Information