Dale Farm Ltd

After installing our seasonal backdrop in head office reception, we thought we'd animate it to share the joy with you 🎄 ❄️ Wishing you happiness and peace this Christmas and much success for the coming year. From all our Dale Farm family.

It’s been another great year at Dale Farm! Here are a few of the highlights we shared with our farmer members at the AGM for our financial year 23/24. From our £70 million investment in our Dunman site to delivering new rejuvenated products for our customers, our team really is the cream of the crop!  Together, with our colleagues and farmers, we look forward to 2025!  #dairycooperative #agrifood

We are once again supporting the Grand Opera House pantomime, playing the role of sponsor for the eighth consecutive pantomime season! The partnership is driven by our ongoing commitment to support Northern Ireland’s vibrant arts sector, while encouraging family fun and togetherness. Speaking about the partnership Caroline Martin, Head of Corporate Marketing and Communications, Dale Farm said “The pantomime is all about bringing families together to share in magical moments and make memories across generations. As a cooperative owned by local farmers, creating dairy family favourites, family is also at the heart of everything we do as a company. We look forward to seeing audiences of all ages enjoying the magic and family fun together this Christmas season!” First to enjoy the pantomime spectacular were 100 lucky Dale Farm employee and farmer families who attended the dress rehearsal performance – with Dale Farm ice creams at the interval of course! #artsandbusiness  

The Winter Fair is always a great celebration of excellence in agriculture, and an opportunity to connect with our farmers as well as the wider agri-food community. This year was no different, and the Dale Farm stand was buzzing with excitement as we welcomed a special visitor. It was an honour to host Prince Edward and have the opportunity to discuss the importance of communication and developments within our Dale Farm cooperative.   We are also grateful to DAERA Andrew Muir for taking the time to visit our stand and engage with our Group Chief Executive Nick Whelan, Chair Fred Allen and some of our farmers.   A big thank you to everyone who stopped by our stand today! Here’s to another successful RUAS Winter Fair, and we look forward to seeing you all again next year!

An inspiring morning at the Young Enterprise NI annual Big Market in St George's Market, Belfast. Our Group Chief Executive, Nick Whelan, joined fellow business leaders and YENI alumni for the breakfast panel discussion to explore the changing recruitment landscape and the role businesses can play to develop talent and leadership potential. Karen Gaw, Caroline Martin and Adele Loughlin joined the panel to judge the entrepreneurial skills of students from schools across NI, as they showcased their amazing talents through their unique products and knowledge of business processes. Well done to all the students who participated today. We are delighted to support the Business Backers programme providing the opportunity to foster essential business skills! #businessbackers #supportyouth #youngenterprise

Recently our HR, Health & Safety and Corporate Marketing teams continued their learning journey with a farm visit to Dale Farm producer, Wallace Gregg, Cloughmills, Ballymena. It was an interesting and informative farm tour, expertly guided by Wallace. More importantly, the teams left with a valuable insight and appreciation of the breadth of skills and knowledge required from our farmers in any given day, 365 days a year. Welly boots aside, let’s focus on the many hats our farmers must wear to succeed -  business manager, accountant, scientist, nutritionist, vet and mechanic, to name a few. It’s challenging to imagine a job description with the same level of diversity and skillset, but all are required from our farmers to enable health and welfare of the herd and secure sustainability of the farm for the next generation.  It's also hard to top a log fire, cup of tea and freshly baked scone after a farm tour on a cold day! Thanks to the Gregg family for their kind hospitality.

Neville Graham has been appointed Producer Services Director at Dale Farm. Neville joined Dale Farm in 2017 and is now responsible for farm support, producer services and sustainability. Welcoming the appointment, Nick Whelan, Group Chief Executive said “I’m delighted to welcome Neville to our Executive Leadership Team at Dale Farm. With a wealth of experience within our cooperative and across the agri-food sector in Northern Ireland, I am confident he will play a key role in driving Dale Farm forward as we continue our journey of sustainable growth.” We all wish Neville well in his new role as he continues to work closely with his teams, as well as our farmer owners, to ensure our cooperative is supplied with milk of the highest standard in quality and drive sustainable growth for the business. #dairycooperative #executiveleadership #niagrifood

Our Mullin’s team were delighted to host the Fisher family for an ‘Ice Cream Experience Day’, after winning the prize at our Dunman Golf Day. The family learnt lots about making ice cream and even got to develop their very own Mullins creation! The Fishers remarked on the shining talents of Mark Gibson and Luke Ramsey with their true passion for the art of ice cream shining through. Thank you to Aidan Fisher for the positive feedback on the strong culture, friendliness and enthusiasm of the team at Mullins. 

Our annual employee engagement survey, MySay, opens today. Over the next 3 weeks we are encouraging employees to take time during their working day to confidentially share their feedback on what they think is going well and where improvements could be made. In previous years feedback has helped shape training, launch an employee recognition programme as well as influence communication forums. We welcome feedback from the last year to drive further change and improvements for the benefit of everyone! #employeeengagement #employeefeedback #dalefarm

We had an excellent turnout at our AGM yesterday providing a welcome opportunity to discuss the outlook for the business with our engaged farmer owners. Dale Farm executive team members Nick Whelan, John Morgan, Chris McAlinden and Mark Boyle presented at the meeting. Topics included the strong results for the last financial year ending March 2024, next steps of our Future Strong sustainability programme, as well as an update on the £70m investment at our cheddar processing facility at Dunman. Independent Director, Ellvena Graham OBE FIoD, shared an interesting insight into board governance and the valuable work undertaken by board sub-committees. Nick Whelan said “Our latest financial results show our business strategy is working. Through strategic investment we are able to deliver growth while paying a competitive milk price. We look forward to the year ahead with a sense of optimism and a determination to build on this success, together with our farmers.”  #dalefarm #sustainabledairy #dairycooperative