Dawn Meats announces deal with South Korean market

Dawn Meats has welcomed the opening of the South Korean market to Irish beef for the first time and announced that it has secured an initial multi-million contract for monthly shipments with a leading South Korean company.

The contract is for Dawn Meats to supply beef monthly to the South Korean firm’s food service, retail, and manufacturing customers across the country.

The agreement comes following the announcement by the Minister for Agriculture Charlie McConalogue that South Korea has agreed to open its market to Irish beef for the first time.

Dawn Meats has secured South Korean approval for the supply, marketing, and distribution of bone in and boneless beef cuts and offal into South Korea from its sites in Charleville and Grannagh in Waterford.

This new contract will commence later this month and follows a successful visit by representatives of the South Korean company to Ireland in January of this year.

The visit was the culmination of significant efforts by Dawn Meats to build relationships with South Korean potential clients, which began in 2018. It also follows an audit of Irish beef plants by South Korean authorities last month.

Dawn Meats is already a supplier of Irish beef into other markets in the region including the Philippines and Japan. This new market access will now facilitate the development of a broader customer base and builds on Dawn Meats growing reputation overseas.

Niall Browne, CEO, Dawn Meats said: “We welcome this new market access to South Korea and we are delighted that two of our sites have received South Korean approval. It is a testament to the high-quality beef supplied by our family farm suppliers, and it is a significant step in developing new market opportunities for our products.

“We must recognise the role played by the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine over the years to secure this positive development.

“We look forward to working with our customers in the South Korean market who will be crucial to helping to bring quality Irish beef to the plates of South Korean consumers.”

Dawn Meats is the supplier of choice to a range of leading supermarket, foodservice and manufacturing businesses, exporting to more than 50 countries.

As a family-owned business, Dawn Meats remains true to its farming heritage through the close relationships it has forged with over 40,000 family farms from which it directly sources grass-fed cattle and lamb for processing at its 11 Irish and 13 UK sites.

Dawn Meats was established in Ireland in 1980, and has grown to a business with more than €2.5bn in annual revenue, employing over 8,000 staff in twelve countries. The company works with some of the world’s leading food companies who are attracted by a commitment to sustainability and quality. Trading as Dunbia in the UK and Dawn Meats in Ireland, the combined businesses process approximately one million cattle and 3.5m sheep annually.