Speaking at the official launch of the Dawn Meats/Teagasc Dairy Beef Conference to be held on Tuesday 9 November 2010, Niall Browne, Dawn Meats Group Chief Executive, said: “Dawn Meats is proud to have recognised the need to develop a technically viable blueprint for the efficient and profitable production of bull beef from the Irish dairy herd last spring.”

Mr Browne also said that with the trials Teagasc are carrying out at Johnstown Castle, and on a number of commercial farms throughout the country, he is convinced that together both organisations can produce a technical blueprint that will form the bedrock of all dairy bull production systems. “This will allow Dawn Meats to market bull beef produced through a variety of sustainable finishing systems that are both viable for the producer and saleable in a number of market sectors within the EU,” he added. Browne also noted that Dawn’s last collaboration with Teagasc delivered the ‘Better Farm Beef Programme’ which was developed from the Dawn Teagasc Beef Partnership.

Professor Gerry Boyle, Director of Teagasc, expressed his delight at the formation of the Teagasc partnership with Dawn Meats, which will combine the research and technical input from Teagasc with the sales and marketing expertise of Dawn, to add value to Irish Farming. This research aims to identify profitable alternatives for farmers in retaining these calves for sale at higher value slaughter weights to the processing industry thus increasing the gross output value for the Irish economy. He acknowledged that without Dawn Meat’s financial support, the vital research would not have been possible. Dawn has agreed that the blueprint will be made available to all farmers in Ireland.

This important conference will be held at 11am on Tuesday, 9 November at Johnstown Castle.

For further information please contact:

Paul Nolan at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it or 087 2463852.