Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Mr. Michael Creed TD, today announced that the value of Irish agri-food and drink exports exceeded €13.5 billion for the first time ever in 2017.

Speaking at the launch of the Bord Bia’s (Irish Food Promotion Board) Export Performance and Prospects 2017-2018 report, Minister Creed announced that this was the 8th successive year of growth in agri-food exports and was driven by a very strong surge in the export of dairy products, .

The dairy sector was the strongest performer with a 19% surge bringing dairy exports to over €4bn.

It was also a good year for meat exports at €3.8bn, with Beef export sales up by 5% to almost €2.5bn, Pigmeat up 14% and Lamb up 12%.

Very strong export growth was also recorded in prepared food exports, which were up 17% to €2.2bn, while the value of beverage exports went up by 8%.

Bord Bia Export Performance Prospects 2018