Each month, we put the spotlight on a Tirlán employee and for our October newsletter, we spoke to Tom McGrath

General Operative at the Kilkenny Food Company soup plant, Tom McGrath, got a job there for four weeks shortly after he returned from Australia. That was almost 28 years ago. The proud Ballycallan man is still there, still enjoying the job, the teamwork and even more importantly, he’s still enjoying a hearty bowl of  Avonmore soup, particularly when the weather turns colder.

It’s a hectic time of year for the close-knit ‘soups’ team, with demand for Avonmore’s soup ranges peaking as the cold weather sets in. Shift numbers increase from one to three in the winter months and weekend work is also called for to fill orders at times, Tom explained.

It’s also busy outside of work for the now 52-year-old former hurler as he prepares for his first ever Dublin City Marathon over Halloween to raise much-needed funds for the Irish Cancer Society.

“My wife Vera recently lost her sister-in-law to cancer so to honour her memory and to remember family and friends we’ve lost, I’ve teamed up with three of my wife’s brothers to take on a ‘Couch to Dublin Marathon’ challenge to raise money for the Irish Cancer Society. My wife’s brother got the idea and we all rowed in.

Above: Taking on the Dublin Marathon to raise money for the Irish Cancer Society are brothers Vincent, Eamonn and Brian Hogan, pictured with Tirlán’s Tom McGrath

“So many people have lost family members to this horrible disease. Deirdre is a year gone now and her three brothers and myself came up with a plan to train and complete the Dublin City Marathon on Sunday 29th October 2023. Of the four of us competing, only one could be described as a ‘runner’. The others, myself included, are all novices when it comes to running 5k, let alone a full marathon.

“I started off running the Parkrun in Kilkenny on Saturday mornings and have been increasing my distances week on week. We got a plan from the Irish Cancer Society and I’m sticking to this. I do miss socialising and a few pints at the weekend, but it’s all for a good cause.

“As a group, we have completed several 10k runs so far, three half marathons and the 30k medieval run in Kilkenny. The priority now is to keep injury free and stick to the plan in the run up to the Marathon weekend.

“It has been difficult but I’ve received fantastic support from family, friends and particularly my work colleagues at Tirlán. There has always been a great spirit of supporting charities in Tirlán and I’d ask as many people as possible to get behind me in my effort to raise badly needed funds for the Irish Cancer Society.

“A bunch of people have been extremely supportive, among them my training mentor, Catherine Guithre and advisors, Ciaran Neary, Tom Kennedy and Noel Kerr and others. I did my cruciate when I was just 21 but made a promise to myself at 40 that I’d get to New York and do a charity run. I managed a half marathon a long time ago but never thought I’d get to do a full marathon. Hopefully all goes well now and we all get over the finish line.”

Tirlán has welcomed 29 new graduates to our two-year ‘Unearth Your Future’ Grad Programme

The grads have joined our business across all functions including Agribusiness, Commercial, Engineering & Operations, Supply Chain, HR, IT, Quality & Compliance, R&D and Strategy/Project Management.

Unearth your Future has been designed to provide the structures our graduates need to grow their careers, including personalised development planning, access to coaching, mentoring and individual wellness planning.

Overherd at Tirlán caught up with two new joiners to our graduate programme to hear about who they are, what motivated them to unearth their futures with Tirlán and what their career aspirations are.

Cathal Byrne – Human Resources

Cathal Byrne is from a small suckler farm outside Killeshin in Co Laois. He completed his degree in Commerce, specialising in HR in NUIG in 2022 and finished a Master’s degree in Strategy, Innovation & People Management this year before joining Tirlán, where he’s working as a HR Associate based in Abbey Quarter.

Cathal told Overherd, “Outside of work, Gaelic Football takes up a lot of my time. I enjoy watching all sports and taking time off for road trips and holidays when the schedule allows. I knew finishing college that I wanted my next step to be something to bridge the gap between my education and a full-time position. The graduate programme appealed to me due to the focus on coaching and mentoring in the programme, where I could get exposure to the Tirlán business, gain experience and obtain further learning opportunities.

I’ve really enjoyed working at Tirlán so far, it’s been a good learning experience and the people have been great. Everyone has been so supportive and willing to give up their time to share their knowledge and get me up to speed on on-going projects. I’m looking forward to building my knowledge over the next two years and working towards becoming a well-rounded HR professional.”

Ella Kennedy – Quality & Compliance

Ella Kennedy is from a dairy farm just outside Cloughjordan, Co Tipperary. Over the past four years, she studied Food Science and Health in University of Limerick. During Covid she followed her passion for food in setting up her own cake and bun sale business. She hopes to pursue that dream further and learn lots more about the industry while working for Tirlán.

“I am working with the Quality and Compliance team in Abbey Quarter. I applied for the Tirlán Graduate Programme as Tirlán is a world-class food and nutrition business that produces high quality food, feed and ingredients that are sold in an international marketplace. I’ve really enjoyed my time here so far, everyone’s been very welcoming and giving of their time.

“Tirlán’s focus on growing the business in a sustainable way has been very interesting to me since I joined and I look forward to learning more about all aspects of the company over the next two years.”

Bringing Tirlán’s Purpose, Vision & Values to Life!

Tirlán is much more than a name, it encapsulates an identity supported by our Purpose, Vision and Values (PVV).

Our vision – To Create a Global Community Celebrating Wholesome Nutrition From the Land We Live and Love – sets out where we wish to be as a business, our place in the world. It provides us with clarity of direction for our business.

Our Purpose – Nourishing Lives in Balance With Nature – by its nature is more emotive, setting out a clear statement of why we exist. Being clear about our purpose provides clarity for every employee in terms their individual contribution and the value they bring.

Finally, our Values set the tone for our desired culture, they provide guardrails for how we make decisions and shape the day to day lived experience of our people through our behaviours.

Over the next 12 months, colleagues will begin to see a programme of activity across our business which aims to bring our values to life and embed them in our day-to-day behaviours. Through this programme, we will have meaningful discussions about the values within our teams and in one-to-one discussions with managers. We will celebrate teams and individuals which role model our values and we will see our PVV imagery coming to life across our workplaces.

Watch the video below that captures the true essence of what our values mean and how they are being brought to life across Tirlán. The video, featuring some familiar faces, gives a sense of how we can truly live the values in what we do every day when we come to work.

Recognising colleagues for living our values is as easy as a few clicks

Kudos is day to day, timely recognition that requires little or no planning. It’s the spontaneous feedback on the spot and in real-time.

You can now formally recognise those colleagues who bring the values to life in their day-to-day behaviours and interactions. By simply dropping them a pre-formatted values-based email, you meaningfully recognise them as a role model for our values.

Click on this link which will take you to Tirlán’s Kudos recognition page, then follow the simple steps to recognise someone for a job well done!

Your Values Notebook is in the post

Hopefully, most colleagues will have received their new notebooks by now. If not, they are on the way to you.

Inside the cover of the notebook, you will find some useful info and examples on ways each of us can live our values on a day to day basis.

Get Involved Through Team Conversations

Over the next 12 months, our values will be brought into team conversations, focusing on one value per quarter. First up is Adapt to Grow.

Managers will lead conversations within their teams and help teams to commit to values-based actions within and across teams.

Please get involved in your local team conversations. Through these conversations, we can create positive momentum to shape our organisational culture to be more reflective of our values.

You can easily bring our values to life!

Everyone across Tirlán can help bring our values to life with our Purpose, Vision and Values visual assets available on the intranet.

PVV icons are available to include in your next presentation. You can display our Values during online calls with a suite of backdrops to choose from and you can add our Values to every email you send too.

You can find the PVV Assets button on the Tirlán intranet homepage to access all this imagery.

Our values are aspirational but by getting involved and bringing the values to life in our everyday interactions, conversations and ways we work, we can develop a culture that reflects authentically our Purpose and values

Get your entries in for the second annual Excellence Showcase event

Taking place in Abbey Quarter on November 30th, the second annual Excellence Showcase recognises and rewards projects that highlight the stellar work carried out by teams in Tirlán sites across the country. The 2022 event – the first year for the Excellence Showcase – received 140 entries. This year, the Excellence team expect a boost to the number of entries received. “We’re very hopeful that there will be even more submissions this year. Since last year’s event, people are definitely more aware of the Excellence Showcase and there’s a great sense of competition between sites as well – if you didn’t win last year, you really want to take home one of the top prize this time around,” said Therese Purcell, Business Excellence Specialist at Tirlán.

For this year’s Showcase, a new category has been added. The Strategic Impact award recognises big projects that contribute to Tirlán’s overall goals and objectives. “Examples of larger projects that would fall into this category would be the move from Glanbia plc to Tirlán co-op or the opening of Abbey Quarter. Projects like these are so big and so all-encompassing that they’re almost overlooked, so that’s why we decided to include the Strategic Impact award this year.”

A new ‘People’s Choice’ Award has also been introduced for 2023, where all those in attendance at the Showcase in November will have the opportunity to vote on their favourite project. The winner of the People’s Choice Award will be allocated €2000 from Tirlán, to be donated to a club or charity of their choice.

There are eight categories for submissions, with three projects set to be shortlisted from each of these categories for inclusion in the Excellence Showcase.

• COVI
• Problem Solving
• Continuous Improvement
• Sustainability
• Customer Impact
• MES/Data Driven Decision
• Quick Win
• Strategic Impact (NEW FOR 2023)

Each of the three winning teams will receive a €1000 voucher for a team building activity of their choice. Therese is encouraging all individuals, sites and functions to submit their project before the September 30^th closing date. “There is so much fantastic work going on at sites across the country. Apply today and make sure your project gets the recognition it deserves.”

Each month, we put the spotlight on a Tirlán Ireland employee and for our September newsletter, we spoke to Kathrin Pasold

German-born Regional Sales Manager for EU, Kathrin Pasold, never tasted cheddar cheese before she began working with Tirlán in April 2018. She was head-hunted from a private label sports nutrition company to fill the expanding role, which sees her work from her base in Northern Germany and cover a territory spanning Germany, Austria, Netherlands, Belgium, Scandinavia and Eastern Europe.

“I am across all Tirlán products – cheese, butter, everything. Protein enriched foods in particular are a huge growth area and since I joined, it’s fantastic to watch this market growing and to contribute with our high-quality raw materials. This trend is expected to last as consumers pay more attention to their diets and I hope we’ll extend our range of Whey Protein Concentrate and Isolates in the near future to grow our market share and return value for our farmer owners.

“This is a very busy role, but I absolutely love it. I work in a very motivated team. We look after a wide range of customers, just to name a few: producers of the McDonalds cheese slices, cheese formatters that slice or grate our premium-coloured cheddar for the food service and retail markets all over Europe, blending specialists that service yoghurt and Ready-to-Drink producers for high protein products you’ll find in nearly all supermarkets, producers of protein bars or ready to mix CPG (consumer packaged goods), ice-cream and also the chocolate industry. No two days are the same and it’s not a 9 to 5 job. I wouldn’t have it any other way.

“The change to Tirlán didn’t impact me as much from a customer viewpoint. They knew they would be getting the same high-quality product and service and that was really their focus.

“I’m very happy in my role. The best part is working with so many different types of people from different regions of the globe. It is great to be out and about again, meeting people and having face to face conversations. I really missed that part of the work. The most challenging part sometimes is our pace and inflexibility when it comes to customer requests. But I am convinced we’ll improve continuously.”

Kathrin lives in a farmhouse which is over a century old and renovating it has been a major project. She is immersed in nature and to unwind, she loves tending to her chickens and cats, photographing nature and packing the car and heading to the North Sea which is only an hour away.

“This job is great and offers so much variety. I am a cheese lover, but never tasted cheddar before I began here. As a consumer, it’s great to understand a bit more how it’s made and the important job our farmers do every day to deliver good quality milk. I like that we sell our ingredients to so many industries. When you go to a supermarket, it’s amazing to spot the final products on the shelves and from time to time, remember the bumpy road of getting there.

“The German and Irish people are different in some ways but very alike in others. When I come over on my own or with customers, we are always made feel welcome and included. Tirlán is truly a global company and our understanding of different cultures, different markets and different ways of doing things is what makes us special, makes us stand out and will future-proof what we do for a long time to come.”

Bring Your All and win a sports voucher from Lifestyle Sports

Kicking off this September, Avonmore Protein Milk’s ‘Bring Your All’ campaign features five athletes across a variety of sports such as GAA, soccer, rugby, CrossFit and weightlifting.

The campaign follows each individual around for a day, showing a typical ‘day in the life’ from their morning routine, work and family commitments, to training, exercise and how they bring their all to everything in their day.

The series of videos gives an insight into a typical athlete’s day and how Avonmore Protein Milk fits into their training routine.

The videos will appear across TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, as well as Tirlán’s internal digital screens.

WIN

To celebrate the launch of ‘Bring Your All’, we have two €50 Lifestyle Sports vouchers to keep you looking sporty this season. To be in with a chance of winning, simply answer the following question:

How many athletes will feature as part of the ‘Bring Your All’ campaign?

Please submit your answers in the comment section of the Overherd at Tirlán email you just received or send them to employeecomms@tirlan.ie

Win tickets to Gamerfest this October with Mooju!

Looking for things to do in October? Well, Mooju’s got you covered. Avonmore’s fresh milk and chocolate drink Mooju is delighted to partner with Ireland’s biggest gaming convention once again at the RDS Dublin, October 21st-22nd.

At the event you can watch some of Ireland’s best gamers battle it out, participate in a multitude of computer games for all ages, trial VR gaming and see some of your favourite cosplay characters, along with a variety of gaming vendors.

Mooju will host some of Ireland’s top gamers, content creators and influencers at the ‘Mooju Live Stage’, while also handing out delicious Mooju during the day.

The Mooju team has kindly given Overherd one group pass (five tickets) to give away for Gamerfest this October. To be in with a chance of winning this great prize, simply answer the following question: Gamerfest is held at the RDS Dublin, but what does RDS stand for?