World Class Food & Drink Producers

Irish beef is also increasingly chosen by some of the worlds’ leading restaurants, with more than 90 Michelin Star Chefs now in the Chefs’ Irish Beef club. Exports of beef, sheepmeat, pigmeat and poultry products account for a third of Ireland's overall food and drink exports and are valued at €3.77bn.

As an island on the edge of Europe, Ireland is surrounded by the cold clear waters of the wild Atlantic Ocean and some of the richest fishing grounds in the EU. Our location puts us uniquely close to a diverse range of fresh, premium quality seafood including Irish mackerel, whelks, crab, oysters and langoustines.

Irish Whiskey is the fastest growing spirit in the world. It is one of the three GI protected spirits in Ireland; the others are Irish Cream liqueur and Poitin. Irish Gin and several other spirits are also distilled.

The value of edible horticulture and cereals exports from Ireland is €230m. The key crops produced by the horticulture sector in Ireland include mushrooms, potatoes, field vegetables, fruit and protected food crops. Mushrooms are a key export product with over 80% of production exported to the UK market and smaller volumes traded to France and The Netherlands. Mushroom output has grown in the last number of years and now stands at 70,000 tonnes.

Customers around the globe recognise that Irish Prepared Consumer Foods are world-class: they are high-quality, distinctive, and made by a diverse range of creative producers from a unique and fortuitous island location.

Up to 30% of exported Irish food and drink products are sold into the business to business channel for further processing by manufacturers. Ireland has a number of manufacturing companies who service this channel and supply a range of products from technical ingredients, to bakery mixes and prepared meat toppings.