Bord Bainne is to expand its sponsorship of equestrian events in Ireland, its managing director, Dr Noel Cawley, revealed yesterday at the opening of the Kerrygold Horse Show.
He said the board, which is well satisfied with its annual £300,000 sponsorship of the horse show, would take over sponsorship of the World Cup one-day event in Millstreet, Co Cork, which had been sponsored by Volvo before it pulled out last year.
Dr Cawley, who is also a noted horse-breeder, said the sponsorship deal with the RDS over the past 10 years had proved to be very satisfactory for Kerrygold.
"It is one of, if not the longest, sponsorships of an equestrian event anywhere and it has helped the sales of Kerrygold worldwide," he said.
Dr Cawley said the television coverage of the show, now reaching 200 million viewers, had particular impact in countries like Germany and Belgium, where showjumping was more popular than horseracing.
It helped too, he said, in the efforts to sell Kerrygold in South Africa, one of the fastest-growing markets for the product. He said annual sales of Kerrygold butter worldwide were worth between £250 and £300 million. Dr Cawley said the event also proved very useful to the board because it normally brought in 200 buyers from abroad to attend the Nations Cup event.
"They absolutely love the day out and we receive many letters of thanks and congratulations from people we take here to the Show," he said.
Asked if the NDB feared losing the horse show to other commercial competitors, Dr Cawley said the sponsorship was reviewed annually and if such an issue arose, it would be reviewed then.
He said Irish dairy farmers and the board were having a very good year and currently the milk price was 5.5p over the EU intervention price.
Dairy sales had recovered following the BSE crisis and there was a modest growth this year. But he was concerned about the recession in Asia.
He explained that the bulk of the Asian market was supplied from New Zealand and with falling consumption there, the New Zealanders would unload their product on the rest of the world markets.
Mr Aidan McCarthy, who looks after the Irish market for dairy products, said sales of butter in Ireland had remained stable since 1990, despite intense competition from spreads.
However, he said, Irish people continued to be Europe's largest milk-drinkers, consuming 120 million gallons of milk annually - a tenth of the milk produced here.
"Milk has a great, wholesome and healthy image with Irish people and consumption is increasing all the time," he said.