The 1% of beef sourced from Brazil by Dawn Farm Foods in 2025 "went to England, not Ireland" according to senior government sources.

Dawn Farm Foods (Dawn Farms) has confirmed that last year "Irish beef made up the majority" of its supply and together with the UK and other EU countries accounted for 99% of its overall annual supply.

The company - whose CEO is Larry Murrin, the chair of Bord Bia - has said that it sources beef from "selected countries to ensure continuation of supply and in some cases to meet specific market requirements".

Dawn Farm Foods, has been in business since 1985, and has won multi-million euro global supply contracts with leading brands in the pizza, sandwich, snack and food manufacturing brands.

Some of the products it supplies includes pre-cooked meat, plant protein, fermented and dried sausage ingredients, which can be used as pizza toppings and sandwich fillings, and in prepared meals, snacks and salads.

It has a dual capacity contingency plan built into these contracts - which means that it must have a guaranteed supply chain in place to meet the contract quota of product at all times.

According to Dawn Farm Foods all of its products are produced in state-of-the-art facilities, including its two production sites in Ireland, one in Northampton in the UK and a fourth in Saarland, Germany. 

The company has a workforce of around 1,400 people.

It currently supplies leading food brands across more than 50 international markets throughout the UK, Europe, the Middle East, Asia and Africa.

Dawn Farm Foods

Dawn Farm Foods is a founding member of Bord Bia’s Origin Green sustainability programme and it highlights to customers its "complete farm to fork traceability".

But since the Beef Plan Movement first drew attention earlier this month to Dawn Farm Foods’ sourcing policy in Brazil there have been calls for its CEO Larry Murrin to resign as chair of Bord Bia.

The organisation had raised questions about sourcing practices by Irish companies after one of its members noticed a sign that was displayed in a Subway restaurant.

Subway has confirmed to Agriland that it "did not source any beef from Brazil for its Irish restaurants in 2025".

Bord Bia

Bord Bia's mission is "to bring Ireland's outstanding food, drink and horticulture produce to the world".

The largest farm organisations, representing thousands of Irish farmers, and also the Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald have said they believe Larry Murrin's role as chair of Bord Bia is "incompatible" with his role in Dawn Farm Foods.

They have called for his resignation.

However the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine Martin Heydon has expressed "full confidence" in Larry Murrin as Bord Bia chair.

Minister Heydon said "that no rules were broken" by Murrin or his company.

He also outlined that Murrin had explained "that the nature of supply contracts for key customers means that contingencies must be in place to ensure continuity of supply in the unlikely event of supply disruption in Ireland".

Farm organisations

The minister's position has put him on a collision course with farm leaders including the president of the Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers' Association (ICMSA) the Irish Farmers' Association (IFA) and the Irish Cattle and Sheep Farmers' Association (ICSA).

They have all called on Minister Heydon to reconsider his backing for the chair of Bord Bia.

Key Bord Bia meetings on producer standards had to be rescheduled to next month after farmer organisations confirmed they would not attend in light of concerns about its chair.

It is understood that the Larry Murrin personally offered to meet with members of the IFA and ICMSA at various meetings around the country to explain in detail Dawn Farm Foods' sourcing policies - but this offer was not taken up.

It is also understood that senior government sources have accused the presidents of these organisations of "misleading their members" in relation to the ongoing debate over the Bord Bia chair.

These sources have described it as "shocking" that the leaders of farm organisations refused the opportunity to let Larry Murrin directly "give their members the facts".

They said that the minister is "acting in the best interests of farmers and the country" in relation to Bord Bia at this time and they claimed that farmers are "losing the goodwill of the public" over the ongoing Bord Bia row.