Earlier this month, we shared that Emydex has started delivering Customer Milestone Plaques to long-standing customers across our global markets, recognising partnerships of ten, fifteen and twenty years. The first plaque has now been delivered to Ashbourne Meat Processors, marking ten years of working with Emydex.
About Ashbourne Meat Processors
Founded in 1985, Ashbourne Meat Processors is a family-owned Irish beef processor with operations in Roscrea, County Tipperary, and Naas, County Kildare.
The business employs close to 200 people across its abattoir, deboning and cold storage operations, supplying premium chilled beef to customers throughout Europe, Asia, Africa and the Middle East.
Ashbourne has also received recognition for the quality and sustainability of its products in recent years, including a gold medal at the World Steak Challenge and Gold membership of Bord Bia’s Origin Green programme.
Connecting Two Plants Through One System
Before the Emydex implementation, Ashbourne’s Roscrea and Naas plants were largely operating independently. Livestock information recorded at Roscrea generated its own paperwork, which then had to be recreated when carcasses were transferred to Naas or to other sites.
The implementation was completed across the two sites in phases, starting with the Naas deboning operation before moving to the Roscrea abattoir, roughly 100 kilometres away.
Both plants were connected through the same system, covering processes from livestock intake through boning, packing and dispatch. Ear tags could also be scanned and animal information registered automatically with AIMS, the Department of Agriculture’s Animal Identification and Movement System, removing a step that had previously relied on manual data entry.
PJ Butler, Plant Manager at Roscrea, described the impact shortly after the system went live:
The savings in administration were immediate. We saved a labour unit in the office immediately, and the piles of paperwork and stacks of files are a thing of the past. We’re almost paperless now, except for the cheques which some of our more traditional farming suppliers prefer over electronic payments. I estimate that actual physical paperwork has decreased by 95 percent, and that’s a huge achievement.”
Ten Years On
A decade later, Ashbourne continues to use Emydex across both plants.
After ten years, Emydex is firmly embedded in how we manage our operations. The consistency and traceability it provides across both plants, together with the team’s understanding of the beef industry, has been an important part of that relationship.”
Donal Houlihan
Operations Manager, Ashbourne Meat Processors
A decade brings a lot of change: new regulations, growing volumes, new plant layouts, sometimes new technology on the factory floor altogether. Emydex has kept working alongside Ashbourne through all of that, and the two companies are still working together ten years later.
Ashbourne is one of several Emydex customers now reaching ten years or more with us, across beef, pork, lamb, poultry and seafood processing in Ireland, the UK, Australasia, Africa and the Americas. Congratulations to everyone at Ashbourne Meat Processors on ten years of partnership and thank you for the trust you have placed in our team throughout that time.
To learn more about how Emydex supports beef processors with production management, traceability and quality systems, visit our Beef Processing Software page or contact our team.
