Take a glimpse into our team’s festivities in China

As we celebrate the Lunar New Year, we asked some of the members of our team in China to share how they celebrated this special occasion with their families, their traditions and the campaigns they participated in. Chinese New Year, also known as the Spring Festival, stands as the most cherished tradition in Chinese culture. It symbolises renewal, hope and the collective dreams for prosperity in the coming year. Falling on the first day of the lunar calendar, this vibrant celebration unites Chinese communities worldwide through a tapestry of rituals, feasts and joy.

Taiyuan: A Blend of History and Modernity

Nathan Dong, Assistant Marketing Manager

Taiyuan, my hometown, is located in the northern part of China and has a history of civilisation for over 5,000 years. It has also been the birthplace of several generations of emperors. Today, Taiyuan retains numerous historical sites, which become even more dazzling during the Chinese New Year. Every household in Taiyuan is decorated in a unique blend of cyberpunk and modernisation, colliding with ancient history to create a distinctive Chinese city and New Year celebration.

The Essence of Chinese New Year

Raymond Li, ASPAC Business Development Director

Out with the Old, In with the New

In the days leading up to the festival, families embark on a thorough cleansing of their homes, a ritual called “sweeping the dust” (扫尘). This represents bidding farewell to the past year’s misfortunes and embracing a fresh start. Once sparkling clean, homes transform into festive havens adorned with crimson decorations: poetic couplets praising harmony, upside-down “Fu” (福) characters symbolising “good fortune arriving” and glowing lanterns casting a warm, auspicious glow.

Family Reunion and Togetherness

The Lunar New Year’s Eve reunion dinner, or “Nian Ye Fan” (年夜饭), is the heart of the celebration. Millions embark on journeys home, braving crowded trains and flights – a migration dubbed “Chunyun” (春运) – to gather around the table with loved ones. The feast features symbolic dishes: dumplings resembling ancient gold ingots for wealth, fish for abundance, and sticky rice cakes for progress. As laughter fills the air, families tune into the Spring Festival Gala, a star-studded TV extravaganza blending comedy, music and dance.

Visiting Relatives and Exchanging Blessings

The first days of the New Year are marked by visits to relatives and friends. Dressed in new clothes – often red for luck – people exchange greetings like “Xin Nian Kuai Le!” (新年快乐, Happy New Year) and “Gong Xi Fa Cai!” (恭喜发财, Wishing you prosperity). Children eagerly receive “hongbao” (红包), red envelopes filled with money, symbolising protection from hardship. These gestures strengthen bonds and weave a web of goodwill for the year ahead.

My Spring Festival Experience

Brooke Yu, Assistant Finance Manager

The Spring Festival, China’s most important holiday, is always a magical time for my family. This year, preparations began weeks in advance. My parents cleaned every corner of our home to “sweep away bad luck,” while I helped Grandma stick red Spring Festival couplets on our doorframe, symbolising hopes for prosperity.

On New Year’s Eve, the whole family gathered to make dumplings. My little cousin accidentally shaped one like a cartoon character, making us all laugh. At midnight, fireworks painted the sky in dazzling colours as we shouted “Guònián hǎo!” (Happy New Year!). The deafening crackles of firecrackers scared our cat under the sofa!

The highlight was receiving red envelopes from elders. Though Mom always jokingly says, “I’ll keep this safe for you,” her warm hug felt more precious than the money. We stayed up late watching the Spring Festival Gala, munching on crispy rice cakes and candied hawthorns.

For the next week, we visited relatives wearing new red outfits. Each home smelled of sizzling fish (a must for abundance) and sweet rice balls. Even my tech-savvy grandparents surprised us by sending digital red envelopes through WeChat!

The festival ended with the Lantern Festival, when we floated glowing paper lotus lights at the park pond. As I watched my little sister’s excited face reflecting the golden lights, I felt grateful for these traditions that stitch our family closer.

Avonmore China Marketing Team’s Festive Spirit 

Claire Hou, Brand Manager

This January, the Avonmore China marketing team embraced the festive spirit of Chinese New Year with exciting new online activities, blending tradition with innovation. To celebrate the holiday, we developed and shared a series of delightful Chinese New Year recipes on social media, bringing traditional flavours to life for our Food Services Professional followers. Incorporating the symbolism of ‘sweet happiness and family gathering’ from Tanghulu into desserts and beverages, we aimed to inspire festive ideas.

In keeping with the cherished tradition of giving red packets to family and friends, symbolising blessings and good fortune, we introduced a modern twist by designing a digital red packet. This innovative feature, available on WeChat, allows users to send their blessings conveniently and stylishly via their phone.

Let’s come together to embrace and celebrate the rich traditions of Chinese culture. May this Spring Festival bring joy, harmony and prosperity to all.

We’re excited to launch the Tirlán Dairy & Sustainability Awards 2025!

The Inaugural Tirlán Dairy and Sustainability Awards 2025 will take place on April 29th.
These awards will celebrate the achievements of dairy farmers who demonstrate best practices in milk quality, animal welfare, farm management and adopting sustainability practices.

Nominations are now open through this link: HERE. Farmers will also be selected to go forward for entry based on their milk quality and sustainability data. The closing date for nominations is Friday February 14. All applications shortlisted will be assessed by a judging panel.

We encourage you all to nominate suppliers who you believe deserve to be recognised.

Each month, we put the spotlight on a Tirlán employee. For our February edition, we’re talking to Lisa Robinson Sweeney, Product Manager for Cheese

I’m from the beautiful coastal area of South Dublin and I try to get out for a walk every day to make the most of it. I like to consider myself active (and so would my dodgy knee) and love doing group classes in the gym or hiking with my friends when the weather allows for it. Staying active is a huge motivator for me and allows me to perform at my best. I love trying new things and would quite literally turn up to the opening of an envelope.

I joined Tirlán in 2021 after taking a year out travelling in Australia and completing my Master’s degree in Food Business Strategy at UCD Smurfit. I originally joined on the graduate programme as a commercial associate and quickly moved into a permanent role as Product Manager for Cheese within the Ingredients Commercial team at the start of 2023.

What I love most about my role as Product Manager is the cross functional nature of it, where I get to interact with stakeholders across the business and work as a cross functional hub to deliver the best results for the business and our customers.

As well as getting to meet various stakeholders within the business, I love attending customer visits and tradeshows to meet our customers face to face and drive deeper relationships and symbiotic opportunities for both businesses. It’s great when we get the opportunity to host some of these customer visits in our new Customer Experience Room in Abbey Quarter and can really display our technical capabilities (along with a nice cheese board).

A big part of customer engagement is understanding our customers challenges and future needs. That is why it is so important for the Commercial team to stay on top of market trends, as well as emerging retail and foodservice trends within the cheese category so we can better help our customers to grow their business. A big trend in cheese is a move towards natural clean labels in which Tirlán were ahead of the curve in providing a clean label offering for colour cheddar and we are now the leading manufacturing of colour cheddar in Europe. Our marketing team are always on the lookout for emerging trends in cheese and attending tradeshows can play a huge part of seeing what’s out there and how we can deliver for our customers now and into the future.

Get ready for the 2025 Tour de Tirlán Charity Cycle

We are thrilled to announce that the 2025 Tour de Tirlán charity cycle will take place on Friday the 5th of September. This year, our goal is to raise an impressive €85,000 for three incredible charities – our charity partner Aware, the Fr. McGrath Centre Kilkenny and the Amber Women’s Refuge.

The Tour de Tirlán is not just a cycling event; it’s a powerful way for us to come together as a community and make a meaningful impact. Whether you’re an avid cyclist or just looking for a way to support a great cause, we encourage everyone to get involved.

More details about the event, including registration information and route details, will be shared over the coming months. In the meantime, you can take a look back at last year’s fantastic event and the success we achieved together CLICK HERE.

Mark your calendars and start preparing for an unforgettable day of cycling, camaraderie and charity. Let’s make the 2025 Tour de Tirlán our best one yet!

On Tuesday 17th December, Tirlán’s role models were recognised for truly embodying our values

On Tuesday, 17th December, we took some time out to celebrate colleagues across the business who were nominated as role models for our four values. We were joined in person by more than 200 people in Abbey Quarter and almost 300 colleagues online to share in the celebration. Out of more than 115 nominations, 10 individual awards were made along with four team awards.
Those recognised provided true insight into what living our values meant to the business and how their stories help us better understand how we can live our values through our own behaviours.

Register for the 2025 Step Challenge today

The well-anticipated Tirlán Step Challenge is back, starting on Monday, 20th January, and finishing on 16th February.

Last year’s step challenge was a blast, with 59 teams participating and a total of 69,408,427 steps counted. The winning team, The Marshmeadow Misfits from New Ross, set an impressive record with 2,455,843 steps. Will you be able to beat their record this year? Sign up to find out!

How It Works
It’s that time of year again to clear the cobwebs and get out your walking and running shoes! Sign up for the 2025 Tirlán Step Challenge to be in with a chance to win some great prizes for you and your team. Simply create a group of four with your colleagues, nominate a team leader, come up with a team name and start clocking up those steps!

Each team of four is required to nominate a team leader who will keep track of the team members’ total step count every week. At the end of each week, the team leader will receive a form to submit the team’s total number of steps.

An overall leaderboard will be posted at the start of each week, which will be available to view on the Tirlán intranet, Viva Engage and OneLan screens.

Prizes and Recognition
At the end of the four weeks, team vouchers and prizes will be up for grabs in the following categories:

• The team with the highest step count
• Branch Site Winners
• Operational Site Winners
• Office Site Winners

Additionally, there will be plenty of prizes and giveaways each week for the most creative team and individual photos of people getting their steps in posted on Viva Engage.

Best of luck to all participants!

Each month, we put the spotlight on a Tirlán employee. For our January edition, we’re talking to Cian Farrelly a Production Manager in Virginia, Co. Cavan

Cian hails from Killoe, Co. Longford and studied Chemical & Bioprocess Engineering at University College Dublin. His career choices were influenced by his close connection to agriculture, having grown up near his grandfather’s farm. This early exposure to farming has been a constant in his life, and he continues to uphold this tradition.

Cian’s professional journey began as a student at Lakeland Dairies. He joined the Glanbia Graduate program in August 2015, starting as an Engineering Graduate in procurement, focusing on Energy and CapeX projects.

“I have been based in Virginia, taking on various roles, primarily in Engineering and Operations. Currently, I am the Production Manager in Virginia, where I am responsible for overseeing the milk processing operations. This includes converting milk into skim and cream, and ensuring the supply of cream to Diageo for Baileys, Lough Egish for UHT, and Killowen for yogurt production.

“I take great pride in maintaining the long-standing relationship we have with Diageo, which spans over 50 years, making Tirlán the exclusive supplier of cream for Baileys since its launch in 1974. I also value the dynamic and evolving relationship with Lough Egish, a relatively new business that continues to grow.

“Meeting customer demand and expectation can be challenging at times. But seeing the team effort on site and across the business in the different functions it takes to meet these expectations is enjoyable and rewarding, along with the continuous upgrades and improvement projects along the way.”

When asked about what he enjoys most about his job, Cian highlights the importance of maintaining and nurturing these key relationships. He finds fulfilment in contributing to the growth and success of these partnerships, which are crucial to the company’s operations.

“I’ve seen a lot of challenges over the years, especially with factors such as COVID and Brexit. But one of the toughest challenges going forward has to be the environmental and sustainability pressures. But with that also comes opportunities for different technologies and investments.”

Cian believes we have built strong partnerships with our customers by providing high quality Irish products and excellent service and consistent reliability. Cian adds: “I think we have strong relationships and trust built, as well as the dedication to supporting local farmers.”

When not on-site at our production facility in Virgina Co. Cavan Cian can be found on the pitch at Killoe Emmet Óg GAA Club. “I play football for my local club and have been fortunate enough to have won a couple of championships. I am heavily involved in the club and coaching the underage teams as well. I also play a bit of golf, but to be honest, I enjoy and follow most sports. I think it’s important to set aside time for yourself – when you have the time and do something you enjoy.”

Christmas fundraising delivers a €6,000 ‘present’ for Tirlán’s charity partner Aware

Over the festive period, Tirlán employees and our farmer shareholders together raised over €6,000 for our charity partner Aware, which provides crucial mental health support services.

Aware is a national organisation committed to assisting individuals affected by depression, bipolar disorder, anxiety and related mood conditions. In 2023 alone, Aware directly supported approximately 40,000 people through its comprehensive support and education services.

Our fundraising activities from Virginia to Belview were diverse and spirited, including donations from Christmas jumper days, festive breakfast and lunch events, and contributions directly from our farmers via our Council Representative structure. Each contribution, no matter the size, significantly impacts the lives of those who rely on Aware’s essential services. Together, we are making a real difference.

To enhance the festive cheer we entered all those who contributed to our fundraising efforts into a draw to win a number of prizes that were kindly sponsored by the Newpark Hotel. The winners are:

• Ruta  Malinauskaite (Lough Egish) – A one-night B&B stay for two at the Newpark Hotel
• Louise McCurdy (AQ) – A one-hour spa treatment for two at the Newpark Hotel
• Padraig Dunne (Ballyragget) –  A voucher for Afternoon Tea with Bubbles for two at the Newpark Hotel
• Cora McCormack (AQ) – A voucher for Afternoon Tea with Bubbles for two at the Newpark Hotel

Announcing the winner of the Christmas Photo Competition on Viva Engage!

We are thrilled to announce the winner of the Christmas photo competition on Viva Engage. A big thank you to all employees who shared the festive cheer across all our sites. It was great to see so much colour and fun!

Unfortunately, there can only be one winner of the €100 One4all voucher. The winner is… Edna MacDonald from our Belview site (see photo below). Congratulations, Edna!

Thanks again to all who took part. Keep an eye on Viva Engage for more employee competitions.