Kerry Coop Case Study Summary

In particular 1983 was an important year for Kerry when it was decided to establish U.S. and UK headquarters - opening offices in the Hancock Centre in Chicago and in London. The Erie Casein company's interest in NKMP was acquired and with its customer base in the U.S. Kerry embarked on the long road of carving a niche in the specialist food ingredient sector. Long before then management had come to understand that Kerry's milk protein was being used in the most sophisticated food products and that far greater value and profit was being generated in researching and producing such ingredient products, as distinct from supplying the milk protein from Ireland.

Accordingly Kerry advanced its diversification program and established a foothold in

This move, which was entirely sympathetic to the Group's ambitious five year plan 1986 - 1990, was viewed as novel and innovative and had not been embarked upon before within the Co-operative sector in Ireland or elsewhere.

Essentially it involved the formation of a Public Limited Company (Kerry Group plc) by acquiring the undertaking, property and assets of the Co-op and as a consideration 90 million ordinary shares in Kerry Group plc were issued to the Co-op. Then in October 1986 a public offering of shares in Kerry Group plc was made at €0.66 (IR 52 pence) per share and the shares were listed on the Dublin stock exchange.

Subsequent to the successful launch and establishment of Kerry Group plc in 1986, higher growth targets were agreed which, with the requisite capital available, were achieved predominantly by acquisition at home and overseas. Kerry opened its first overseas food ingredients manufacturing plant in Jackson, Wisconsin in 1987 and the following year made its significant acquisition of Beatreme Food Ingredients, a division of the Beatrice Corporation. Beatreme, the premier specialty food ingredient supplier in the U.S. market was acquired by Kerry for