Each month, we put the spotlight on a Glanbia Ireland employee and for our December newsletter, we spoke to Pat Fogarty, Head of Milk Agents and Field Sales

Pat joined Avonmore in August 1997 as a Sales Development Manager covering the North East – Meath, Monaghan & Cavan. Soon after, the company became known as Avonmore Waterford following the merger of Avonmore and Waterford Foods, “and by way of a couple of changes along the way we are now Glanbia Ireland, with more to come!”, Pat told Overherd.

“Some of our Agents specialise in Doorstep, more are 100% focused on Wholesale deliveries and sales to Foodservice and Retail Outlets, and in Rural areas we have agents who have a cross section of Retail, Food Service and Doorstep. Milk agents are out USP (unique selling point) delivering in excess of 3 million litres of milk and cream annually to our customers. We deliver to 112,000 households who receive a delivery to their doorstep on average 3 times a week and we do an additional 17,000 contract deliveries per week.”

One of Pat’s biggest (and busiest) roles is leading the Glanbia Christmas strategy. “To be honest, I’ve forgotten how many years I’ve been doing this, it’s probably about my 12^th year leading what is a hugely successful cross functional performance. For the month of December every year all functions come together as one and no other FMCG company can claim the success we deliver each Christmas. It’s a very busy and challenging month, but also very enjoyable – winning together, performance matters and customer champions all rolled into one!”

Cream tops off many Christmas dinners across the county during the festive season, and the sheer volume of cream produced, distributed, sold and consumed is huge at this time of year. Pat explains that “our biggest achievement is putting cream in front of the consumer at every opportunity, be it on the homesite through additional space, extra standalone refrigeration or end space in stores, we always succeed in capturing more than our share of space and each year circa 1.2 million units of retail cream will sell and 70% of that volume will sell over a 3-day period. The amount of planning and execution involved from early October across all of our functions to bring this to life is hard to put into words. I hope I somewhat communicate my thanks each year, but I really appreciate all the effort and support from everyone involved.”

“Glanbia Ireland has become well practiced at delivering for our customers over the years and practice really does make perfect when working with the same core of people who fully understand the commitment needed to deliver on a consistent basis each year. The cross functional commitment to succeed each year is what makes the whole plan work. Everything is possible and that attitude is very evident across all areas of the business and paramount to success. The biggest compliment to the teams is that all our key customers just stand back and leave us at it and they fully trust that we will continue to deliver strong results. Roll on Christmas 2021!”

With Christmas being Pat and his team’s busiest time of year, getting a break can be difficult. “Most of my colleagues work harder and longer hours leading up to and including Christmas but the upside of that is we can enjoy our time off when the sun shines in the summer months. In the Consumer Division we have milk and cream volume to be chasing and money to be collected for the year end. However, I will still find time to enjoy a few small pieces of Christmas pudding covered in Avonmore Whipped cream or Luxury custard ……you wouldn’t think it looking at me!”