Exporting success: How Irish food brands win overseas markets

John Cradden Irish food explains how brands can succeed overseas by choosing the right markets, adapting their products, securing distributors and protecting profitability.

Irish food brands have a good track record when it comes to international markets, the most obvious example being Kerrygold butter, which now stands as the number two butter brand in the US and the number one dairy brand in Germany.

According to An Bord Bia, Ireland’s food, drink and horticulture exports reached a record €19 billion in 2025, with prepared consumer foods alone – and probably the most relevant category for Irish food SMEs – accounting for €3.6 billion, while exports to international markets outside the UK and EU were worth an estimated €5.2 billion.

However, for Irish food SMEs, it won’t be enough to piggy-back on the country’s strong international reputation for food quality and provenance. You’ll also need to have or build a brand with a strong story that centres around a distinctive or superior taste, premium ingredients, health benefits, sustainability, authenticity or a unique production method. And if you can link any of this with the Irishness of the product, then so much the better.

Even if you have a strong brand, securing your first international sale will still need time and effort spent preparing on a number of fronts, including your production capacity, regulatory compliance, logistics, pricing and market research.

Know your market, do your research

To focus on market research, a sensible approach for a SME will be to identify a one or a very small number of markets where your product, pricing, and proposition are likely to be a good fit rather than tackle a number of markets at once.

That means looking at consumer behaviour, competitors, retailer structures, regulations, logistics, import requirements and potential distribution partners before committing significant resources.

The ultimate goal should be to set up in a country or region where the company can build distribution, learn what consumers want and prove that it is revenue-generating and profitable before moving into neighbouring countries.

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This very much reflects Bord Bia’s strategy of market prioritisation and using consumer and trade insights to help Irish food SMEs to complete in a fast moving global market.

Although published in 2018, An Bord Bia’s Prioritising Markets report, which provides concise overviews of 75 in-depth studies of a range of priority markets, is likely still relevant.

If you’re exploring which countries offer the best opportunities, the key seems to be to look for those markets where you can sell a strongly branded, differentiated, higher-value product, rather than try to compete on volume or commodity pricing.

The US market remains one of the most important markets for Irish food brands, accounting for €2.1bn of exports in 2025, with the prepared consumer foods category rising by 16% to €170m. However, even with its strong growth potential, Bord Bia cautions that tariffs and changing trading conditions could make the US market more challenging over the next five or so years.

Getting it right

North Dublin-based Keogh’s Crisps, which has created a strong brand around a premium product, small-batch production, Irish ingredients, innovative new flavours and farm provenance, now exports to 20 countries including the US.

The UK market is a still a mature for essential market for many firms here, accounting for 35% of Irish food exports in 2025, and rising 14% to €6.7 billion in the process. But it would be reasonable to question whether an investment into the UK would be better directed to, say, another EU country on account of the continuing adverse economic impact of Brexit.

The opportunity for premium food makers in Germany remains enticing, as one of four regions in the EU accounting for €5.2bn of the total €7.1bn in Irish food and drink exports across the EU. Although Irish prepared consumer food exports to Germany actually fell 15% in 2025 to €115m, it has a huge consumer population with sophisticated retail and food service sectors, representing a great opportunity for a premium brand with a strong story.

It is also a much easier place from which to build a broader continental European presence than trying to launch separately in numerous smaller countries.

When expanding into international markets, packaging, pack sizes, flavours, recipes, price points and marketing messages may all need adjustment, but the underlying brand can remain consistent while the proposition is adapted to local habits.

The family-owned Irish oat brand Flahavans has built exports into the UK, US, South Korea and UAE, with international markets accounting for more than a quarter of turnover in the company’s reported figures. In South Korea, the company identified an emerging opportunity around growing interest in oats and their fibre content.

Opening new markets overseas doesn’t have to depend on having a strong, differentiated brand. Germany was among a number of new markets in the EU that Wexford-based meat producer Drover Foods found its feet in after it identified opportunities through expanding into plant-based products.

The company initially exported only to the UK, but a chance encounter with a falafel helped prompt CEO Anne Smyth to develop a meat and plant-based portfolio and move into Germany as well as Austria, France and Sweden. Enterprise Ireland reports that the company now has turnover of €25 million.

A product can be excellent with an attractive brand but still fail internationally if it cannot get reliably onto shelves. Finding the right distributor or importer is a key task for Irish food SMEs and deserves to be made a strong priority in the search for overseas expansion. The right partner should ideally understand the category, have established retailer relationships and be capable of supporting sales and marketing.

Bord Bia identifies distribution and supply-chain management as major challenges for Irish exporters, while its food distribution research highlights increasing retailer and distributor power and the risk of losing control of the supply chain.

One other common exporting mistake is to assume that achieving export sales automatically equates to export profitability.

After all, you’ll have to consider the complete cost of placing your product in a new market, which will include production, packaging changes, freight, insurance, duties or tariffs where applicable, warehousing, distributor margins, retailer margins, promotions and marketing.

In other words, the profitability of a product as it leaves the factory may look very different after it has passed through several layers of an international supply chain.