'All things came together' for Carbery Group in 2024 - CEO (2025)

The chief executive officer (CEO) of Carbery Group, Jason Hawkins, has described 2024 has a year in which “all things came together” for the business, following the release of its annual results.

Carbery recorded what it called a “strong financial performance” for 2024, with operating profit up approximately 20%, in yesterday’s (Wednesday, April 23) announcement.

Group turnover also increased for the year ended December 31, Carbery said.

Revenue increased by 8% to €668 million, while group EBITDA (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortisation) increased by 12% to €52 million.

Speaking to Agriland after the announcement, Hawkins said: “It really is a year where probably all things came together in terms of all parts of the business performing well.

“Dairy markets improved in 2024 from 2023 so that helped on the revenue line, and obviously supported milk prices,” he said.

Hawkins added: “On the other side of the house, from a nutrition perspective, we’re very focused on whey protein, both from a pricing perspective as well as a demand perspective. The protein demand is very strong so the whey, the nutrition side of the business, performed well.

“Across our taste platform, which has operations in the US, in Brazil, in Asia, and in Europe, all of those businesses performed well.

“The balance sheet is in a very healthy position, and also the fact that the board decided to allocate €8.6 million into the Stability Fund, really allows us from all those angles, particularly in times like we’re living in – there’s a lot of uncertainty and a lot of challenges potentially out there – we’re well situated to handle a lot of issues that might come at us,” the Carbery CEO commented.

He said that the Carbery business leadership is “not arrogant, we’re not getting ahead of ourselves, but certainly we’re starting in a good position right now”.

Carbery’s milk pool is based in west Co. Cork, one of the areas of the country where there is a considerable focus on water quality and the nitrates derogation.

“On the derogation side, about 65% of our farmers are in derogation, so it is an issue for us here, and from a business perspective, probably more importantly from a farmer shareholder perspective, a lot of progress has been made,” Hawkins said.

“Going back to the launch of ASSAP (Agricultural Sustainability Support and Advisory Programme) and other programmes…every one of our suppliers now has gone through the water assessment with the advisors,” he added.

“We’re now taking actions and I think you are starting to see that come through on the most recent EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) report as well.

“Both in Carbery and the industry, we’ve been at it for years, but I think we really upped our game in 2024. You’re starting to see those actions pay off now. And I think you’ll continue to see them pay off in 2025 and beyond.”

Although Dairy Industry Ireland (DII) said this week that milk supply across the the sector during this peak season is set to be very considerable, Hawkins does not envisage that the level of milk production will cause any capacity challenges for Carbery.

“I would say we’re trending towards maybe slightly behind 2021 levels – now it’s week-to-week. It’s very strong at the moment. Obviously we didn’t have any capacity issues in 2021, so no, I think we’re confident that we can handle the milk that’s going to come at us in 2025,” he said.

On milk price, the Carbery CEO expressed confidence, despite the business reducing its price to suppliers for the first time in 2025 last week, for March milk supplies.

“I think markets have been fairly stable, at a decent enough level if you look at things like the Ornua PPI (Purchase Price Index) and you look at future markets and so on,” Hawkins said.

“Obviously there’s been a small gap, we adjusted our own price recently. There’s a small gap that does exist between where we’re paying and where the market returns are, but I think that’s small in the grand scheme of things,” he added.

According to Hawkins, the “outlook would be, at the moment, that milk price in 2025 will be an improvement on 2024”.