Vol. 576 No. 2
127 Mr. Durkan asked the Minister for Agriculture and Food the extent to which the food industry here is keeping pace with international developments in the area of pre-cooked frozen and oven ready products; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [29480/03]
Ireland has a dynamic prepared consumer foods sector which has experienced strong growth in recent years in terms of sales and exports and is projected to continue to be the fastest growing sector of the Irish food industry in the immediate future. To assist the sector in continuing its sales growth and in keeping pace with market developments, Enterprise Ireland launched its Prepared Consumer Foods Strategy 2003-2006 on 9 October last.
The strategy sets out a vision for a strong performing sector and outlines the key features driving rapid and radical change in the food industry. The main feature is a continuing market led move away from basic products towards prepared food products, driven by changing consumer buying behaviour, the changing marketplace and technology advances. The strategy focuses on the need to upgrade the capabilities of Irish companies to improve their competitiveness, particularly in crucial areas of increased R&D, human resource development, world class manufacturing and e-business investment. The initiatives to be taken by the State agencies, in partnership with the sector, to achieve the objectives of the strategy are comprehensively set out.
The initiatives include assisting in-company research, which complements the public good research into the consumer foods and ready meals sectors carried out under the food institutional research measure, FIRM, for which my Department has provided significant funding in recent years. Ireland has a number of large food companies which are at the forefront of international developments in ready meal technology and are active participants in FIRM funded research projects being conducted at the Teagasc National Food Centre and at University College Dublin. This research on ready meal technology includes new product development, food safety, freeze chilling and sous-vide/freezing.
All ready meal companies, including start up companies, are reached with outcomes from this research via workshops, factory visits, facts sheets and interactive training programmes. Key findings accessed by Irish researchers and technologists participating in European food R&D programmes are also disseminated through the RELAY project which is funded by FIRM.
