Another Goodman with a steak in the business

There was a lot of whooping and hollering this week about the reopening of the US market to Irish beef. Simon Coveney, the Minister for Agriculture, even appeared to wade out into the middle of Manhattan’s frenetic traffic carrying a raw sirloin for a photoshoot. Brave chap.

Larry Goodman was, of course, first in with a €15 million contract for his Anglo Beef Processors to supply beef to Sysco. Paul Finnerty, ABP’s genial chief executive, accompanied Coveney on the trip.

It was also interesting to see Mark Goodman, Larry’s 31-year old son, captured on camera by RTÉ in the shot on the right, playing a prominent role in proceedings. Is he Ireland’s next beef baron?

Mark, who left Dublin Business School with a marketing degree a decade ago, is ABP’s international commercial director, a juicy role. His father is now aged 77, and while there’s no sign of him relinquishing control just yet one would assume that a bit of succession planning has taken place.

Laurence jnr , Goodman’s other son, who has also acted as a director of some ABP-related firms, appears more preoccupied with property development at the moment, as outlined elsewhere in today’s business supplement.

Meanwhile, while big fancy steaks make for the best photoshoots, the real money for ABP is in the manufactured side of things such as minced beef.

Coveney told our Man in the Land of the Free that it is “only a matter of weeks” before the US market opens back up for this sort of Irish meat product.

Then ABP’s US aspirations might really sizzle.