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Cattle Shortage and Processor Pressure: What the Market Is Demanding and How to Respond

Across Ireland and much of Europe, beef processors are facing increased pressure to secure livestock while maintaining efficiency in operations. With tighter supply chains and shifting dynamics, the need for reliable animal payments software has never been greater.

At the same time, cattle prices continue to climb. Some Irish processors are offering more than €8 per kilo for certain categories. Producers are no longer just suppliers. They are business partners who expect speed, flexibility and transparency in return for their loyalty.

While some plants are adapting quickly, many still face internal friction that makes it harder to keep up. And when delays affect critical relationships, the consequences can be costly.

A Shift in Power and Expectation

Recent news stories reflect this changing landscape. Reports highlight how factories are offering more flexibility to secure cattle. In some cases, a price gap of up to €200 per head is driving livestock north for slaughter. Other headlines note how marts are attracting producers with faster turnarounds and stronger prices.

This is not isolated. It is a pattern. Producers are making decisions quickly and expect the same from processors.

But when internal systems are outdated, everything slows down. Manual payment processes, delayed reconciliations and unclear supplier statements can erode trust over time. These are not just inefficiencies. They are risks. And in a supply-constrained market, every delay can mean losing a load of cattle to a competitor.

The Role of Technology in a High-Pressure Market

For processors navigating this new reality, technology needs to do more than automate. It needs to provide clarity. It needs to inspire trust. And it needs to integrate seamlessly into daily operations, especially where payments and producer relationships are concerned.

At Emydex, we work closely with some of the largest food processors around the world. That experience has shaped the way we build our systems, always focused on what matters most in practice. Our Animal Payments System is designed specifically to help plants manage livestock payments with greater efficiency and transparency.

The system supports multiple species and payment models, with flexible rule configurations and detailed supplier statements. It integrates with existing ERP and finance systems, supports both EFT and cheque payments, and ensures full audit compliance from end to end. The result is a process that runs faster and more accurately, with fewer disputes and stronger producer relationships.

Why the Right Animal Payments Software Matters

When supply is tight and prices are rising, maintaining trust with producers becomes essential. And that trust is built on reliability. Fast, accurate payments show suppliers that a processor values the relationship and is ready to do business with clarity and professionalism.

This is no longer just a finance issue. It is a strategic one.

Processors who continue relying on manual processes risk falling behind. Those who modernise their systems will be better prepared to move quickly, respond to market changes, and maintain a steady intake of quality livestock.

Emydex helps make that possible. To see how our Animal Payments System supports processors in high-pressure environments, visit our page.

To learn more, contact Emydex at any of our global market offices in Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, Africa or North America.

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Meet our Meat Industry Experts

Meet Our Team of Meat Industry Experts​

Key to our success in Emydex is having a strong team of meat industry experts and business analysts who truly understand the workings of the meat industry at a deep level.

To achieve this level of Industry domain knowledge and expertise, Emydex business analysts must have spent many years working first in the meat industry, on the other side of the table, whether directly on the factory floor or in back-office functions serving factory floor production teams.

Emydex are proud to have announced over the past year, a number of key appointments that strengthen and bolster our international team of meat industry experts, a team led by Shane Hayes.

 

Meet the Experts - Shane

 

Shane Hayes – Product Manager
(Ireland & Australia)

Shane Hayes has led Emydex’s team of business analysts since first joining Emydex seven years ago. Originally from South Australia, Shane’s career has spanned both IT and meat processing operations, giving him the hybrid skills required to bridge the gap between IT technical solutions and factory floor business processes. During his seven years working in the JBS lamb plant in Bordertown, South Australia, Shane started out in the role as site IT Manager.

He later moved into another back-office role that was Factory Production planning and scheduling, before making the move to the factory floor as a Boning Hall foreman.

Before joining Emydex in 2018, Shane spent six months working as a production hall supervisor with Irish Country Meats, Ireland’s leading lamb processor, in their main plant in Camolin in Ireland, a plant that (independent of Shane) went live with its first Emydex MES systems for appointments, lairage and kill line last year (2024).

 

Meet the Experts - Ladislav

 

Ladislav Ondrejicka
(Ireland & Slovakia)

Latso’s journey in the meat industry started on the factory processing floors in the Dunbia Group in the UK, where he spent almost a decade working his way up from being a boning hall meat trimmer to an IT Project Manager. His experience managing large-scale processing projects has given him a deep understanding of factory operations and the challenges processors face daily.

His knowledge of the workings of the meat industry, ran in parallel to his knowledge of Emydex, as for his tenure with Dunbia, Latso was instrumental in supporting the roll-out of Emydex to Dunbia’s ten plants in the UK.

With hands-on experience in production and management, Ladislav is expertly equipped to support our customers in streamlining operations. At Emydex, he plays a key role in ensuring our technology delivers real-world benefits to the industry.

Meet the Experts_Jayne

 

Jayne McMillan (New Zealand)

With almost 30 years working at Alliance Group Ltd, in various roles including Laboratory manager, MES Project manager, as well as an ERP consultant, Jayne has built an impressive career in the meat industry, gaining expertise across operations, quality control and business management.

In addition to her corporate experience, she also owns and operates her own butchery business in South Island, New Zealand, giving her firsthand insight into both large-scale processing and retail butchery. Jayne is a qualified trade butcher and her hobbies include Trapshooting, Hunting and Farming.

 

 

Meet the Experts - robin

 

Robert Tobin (Ireland)

Robert has a long-standing relationship with Emydex, having worked with Emydex systems in Slaney Meats for eight years. He brings with him over 24 years of experience as the IT Manager at ABP Slaney, where he also managed his own IT consulting company for over 15 years. During this time, he developed software and traceability systems for the food and transport industries.

At Slaney Meats, Robert successfully project managed the installation of an Emydex kill line for the factory and served as our primary point of contact for many years, making him well-versed in Emydex systems. Today, Robert continues to bring his wealth of experience to Emydex customers, helping them implement best-in-class solutions.

 

With over 80 years of combined experience working in Meat plants, Emydex are proud to have this strength and depth in our Business Analysis team, sharing their vast domain knowledge and industry expertise to ensure we continue delivering solutions that meet the needs of the meat industry.

If you want to learn more – contact Emydex in any of our global market offices in Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, or North America

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Emydex to Showcase Cutting-Edge Solutions at IPPE 2025

Emydex Technology is excited to announce our participation in the International Production & Processing Expo (IPPE) 2025, taking place from January 28th to 30th in Atlanta, USA. Following a highly successful debut at IPPE 2024, we are thrilled to return and showcase our latest innovations in packaging, processing, and quality management.

 

Our CEO, David McMahon, along with our Team Lead for North America, Cody Musclow, will be present at the BAADER booth C29159.

Over the course of three days, we will be demonstrating our state-of-the-art software solutions, including live demonstrations of our latest Box Packing and Labelling system, as well as our Electronic Quality Management System (EQMS). These systems have been successfully implemented in leading companies such as Murray’s Chickens in New York, whom we first met at IPPE 2024.

emydex-ippe-2005-03

The IPPE is the world’s largest annual poultry and egg, meat, and animal food industry event, attracting over 30,000 attendees and 1,400 exhibitors. It provides a unique platform for industry professionals to explore the latest products, services, research, processes, and technologies. This year, we are particularly excited to highlight our collaboration with BAADER, showcasing our combined digitization solutions for poultry processors.

If you are attending IPPE, we invite you to visit us at the BAADER booth to learn more about our innovative solutions. To arrange an appointment and schedule a software demonstration, please reach out to Cody Musclow at cody.musclow@emydex.com.

We look forward to seeing you at IPPE 2025 and demonstrating how Emydex can help enhance your production processes with our cutting-edge technology.

Find your way to our booth!

emydex-ippe-2025-where-to-find-us

 

If you want to learn more – contact Emydex in any of our global market offices in Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, or North America

Request a Demo

Forresters Chicken Celebrates a Decade of Quality Management with Emydex

A Decade of Quality Management Excellence​

Over the past ten years, Forresters Chicken has leveraged Emydex’s Quality Management system to enhance accuracy, reduce human error, gain real-time insights into quality data, and improve traceability. This collaboration has significantly transformed Forresters Chicken’s operations, ensuring the highest standards of quality and efficiency in their processes.

Meet the Client

Established in 1972, Forresters is one of the largest suppliers of cooked, raw, and coated poultry in the United Kingdom. Based in Cheshire, the company provides retailers, food services, pub retailers, manufacturers, and catering butchers with frozen, chilled branded, and own-label chicken products. To maintain its reputation for high-quality standards, Forresters set out to enhance its quality management processes.

The Opportunity

With a growing client base and increasing production demands, Forresters required a more streamlined and robust approach to quality management. Existing manual quality checks were resource-intensive and prone to human error, especially as production volumes rose. Furthermore, limited real-time access to quality data hindered swift decision-making and posed challenges in meeting regulatory standards.

Forresters needed a comprehensive Quality Management System (QMS) that could automate quality workflows, provide real-time data, and integrate with their ERP system for seamless traceability and compliance tracking. Forresters had been operating an Emydex factory floor MES (Manufacturing Execution System) for production control, yield management and traceability reporting for many years, so it was a straightforward decision to extend our Emydex software footprint to include all of our Quality, Compliance and Food Safety Management processes.

What We Did

Working closely with Forrester’s management, our team worked with Emydex to develop and implement a customised QMS solution that aligned with Forrester’s operational goals. The implementation process was structured in two main phases:

1. Phase One – Digitalising Quality Checks
Forresters began by introducing automated digital checklists across the production floor, replacing paper logs and allowing quality checks to be completed via tablets at each workstation. Data is now collected on tablets running the Emydex Quality system in real-time, and any deviations from standards trigger instant alerts, allowing issues to be addressed immediately.

2. Phase Two – Comprehensive Quality Dashboard
In the next phase, Forresters deployed an Emydex quality system dashboard for management and supervisors, providing a centralised view of quality metrics across production. The dashboard consolidates data on batch compliance, audit trails, incident reporting, and corrective actions. Fully integrated with Forrester’s ERP system, it links directly to purchasing and inventory data, ensuring traceability from raw materials to finished products.

3. Automated Audit and Compliance Reporting
A key feature of the Emydex EQMS is its automated compliance reporting. The system generates real-time, auditable compliance reports accessible from any device, dramatically reducing the time required for internal and external audits. Issues are flagged and assigned for resolution, enhancing accountability across departments.

The Results

Since implementing the Emydex Quality Management system, Forresters has significantly improved operational efficiency and quality compliance.

Enhanced Accuracy and Reduced Human Error: Automated digital checklists have replaced manual entries, reduced errors and ensured consistency in quality checks across all lines.

Real-Time Quality Insights: Managers and supervisors can now view quality metrics instantly, enabling quick decision-making and proactive quality control.

Efficient Compliance Audits: Compliance reporting, which previously required days of preparation, is now generated instantly by Emydex, saving time and resources. Audit readiness has also improved, as records are automatically archived and easily accessible.

Improved Traceability: The QMS enables complete traceability from raw material intake to finished product distribution, facilitating stock rotation and maintaining quality at every stage.

Feedback from Key Stakeholders

Dwayne Chin, Head of Technical at Forresters, noted, “The Emydex QMS has been transformative for our business. Our team no longer spends hours sorting through paper logs; we can spot and address issues immediately. Compliance reporting that once took days is now ready in minutes, giving us more control over quality and peace of mind.”

John Acornley, Finance Director, added, “With the Emydex Quality system in place, Forresters have significantly reduced errors and improved our response times. The Emydex automated alerts keep our team informed, and the dashboard makes it easy to stay on top of production quality. It’s been a huge upgrade.”

Summary

The Emydex Quality Management System implemented at Forresters has streamlined operations and reinforced its commitment to delivering high-quality products to its clients. By enhancing workflows, improving traceability, and enabling instant access to quality data, the QMS has empowered Forresters to meet regulatory standards and confidently scale its operations.

Don’t wait! Embrace the future of quality management with Emydex’s Electronic Quality Management Software (EQMS).

If you want to learn more – contact Emydex in any of our global market offices in Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, or North America

Request a Demo

A new Dawn for Quality systems

Dawn Meats Group, one of Europe’s leading meat processing companies, sought to streamline its factory-floor Quality Management System with Emydex.

 

Meet the client

Dawn Meats Group is a family-owned business established in 1980 in Waterford, Ireland. The company has grown to become one of the largest and most important beef and sheep processing groups in the industry. The group employs over 8,000 people across twelve countries, including ten sites in Ireland and thirteen in the UK, and exports to over 50 countries worldwide.

Every year, Dawn Meats Group processes over 1 million cattle and 3.5 million sheep, generating more than €2.5 billion in turnover for the company and contributing over €1.67 billion to rural economies through 30,000 farms in Ireland and the UK.

The numbers are staggering, and so is their success.

 

The Opportunity

Dawn Meats developed its own in-house quality management system, which largely relied on manual, paper-based checks throughout its factory floors.

While this was rigorous and helped to maintain the company’s highest quality products, it was inefficient, creating delays, tons of paper, and hours of data entry. The old manual way of working involved lengthy printing, handing out, filling in, returning, checking, countersigning, and storing paper records. On top of that, files had to be physically retrieved in the event of an audit or to trend data.

For the past decade (since 2013), Emydex has been developing an Electronic Quality Management System (EQMS) capable of being used in single plants as well as across multi-plant group processors like Dawn Meats Group

Emydex’s Quality Management System is a software system that allows food processors carry out their factory and food safety quality and audit checks on tablets, reporting instantly in the back-office, replacing all paper-based quality check sheets on the factory floor.

A perfect fit for Dawn Meats Group.

“​We selected Emydex, a long-standing partner of ours, due to Emydex’s understanding of our food production facilities, their excellent software development ability and personal project management delivery,” said Julia Hewerdine, Group Food Safety & Quality Project Manager in Dawn Meats Group.

 

There were several drivers behind Dawn Meats Group’s decision to select Emydex:

 

One System

The first was Emydex gave Dawn Meats Group one single system, with Emydex’s quality module sitting alongside all other Emydex factory floor MES, Production and Warehouse Management modules on one common platform.

“We have worked with Emydex over the past decade on the production and traceability side, so we trust them”, commented John Coleman, Dawn Group Food Safety and Quality Manager.

 

Cloud or On-Premises

The EQMS system can be installed on-premises or in the cloud. Emydex doesn’t force its customers to operate their QMS out of the cloud; they can install it on-prem if necessary.

“Emydex has had a tremendous impact on our shop floor quality data collection on site, as well as safeguarding completion of checks in a scheduled and timely manner.  Its reliability and speed have ensured that workflows carried out have been given full attention, and no corners are cut.” said Alan McCormack, Dawn Meats Technical Team

 

Online and Offline Mode

Another key differentiator is that the system can work offline as well as online for all compatible mobile devices, using local databases. This means operators can switch to offline mode when capturing quality data in areas with poor or zero Wi-Fi coverage.

“Our QA’s like the systems’ ability to save checks within the factory, without needing to return the checks to folders which would previously have occurred. The system’s speed and performance has allowed for more thorough and detailed checks on the line, as well as increasing their time available to carry out additional checks, without needing to carry out tedious admin tasks.”, commented Alan McCormack, Dawn Meats Technical Team.

 

Flexibility

Finally, the system is very configurable in-house including an easy-to-use quality workflow builder tool. This function allows in-house QC personnel (non-IT people) to design and build their own Quality workflows in-house, including QC surveys, QC check-sheets and quality audits.

“I like how their QMS system is flexible, and how we can configure it to how we wanted to work – not something you get with an out-of-the-box solution. This flexibility means we can build our own workflows ourselves, not involving Emydex nor internal IT.” added John Coleman, Dawn Meats Group, Food Safety and Quality Manager.

 

Going Live

The Emydex Quality Management System has been operating in Dawn Meats Group’s Irish & UK facilities for over five years now. Having first gone live in two Irish plants in 2019, today the system is operating in Dawn Meat’s seven primal processing plants in Ireland, as well as a further seven group primal processing plants in the UK, fourteen plants so far, with further roll-outs underway, including three retail processing plants in the UK.

At this point Dawn’s group technical QC team have configured internally almost 500 separate QC workflows in Emydex including for example, Abattoir and Boning Hall pre-op checks, GMP audits, metal detector checks, glass and hard plastic, knife register, and attendance checks etc. Once built centrally, such workflows can then be used across all the group’s sites.

 

The Results

Emydex EQMS helps Dawn Meats Group streamline the QMS processes across its factories and ensure they are working to the most effective QMS system. Standardising the QMS and FSM systems across the group improves compliance and shares best practices throughout all the facilities.

“External auditors have had a positive outlook on the Emydex quality system, frequently commenting on its benefits of generating reports, assigning close-outs, and collating data at a click of a button.” said Alan McCormack, Dawn Meats Technical Team

 

Using the Document Management System included within the system, sites can share generic documents and processes and tailor the specifics to the site. This reduces time lost in writing up documents and figuring out procedures and risk assessments.

The system creates actions, alerts, notifications and alarms in real-time and automatically tells them when they are out of compliance, forcing the immediate implementation of corrective actions.

“The less obvious savings are evident too – less time and effort, fewer mistakes and corrections, reduced hold-ups, etc. I can see if people are making the required quality checks and if they are making them at exactly the right times.” John Coleman, Dawn Group Technical Manager in Ireland

 

It improves compliance and reduces issues in announced and unannounced audits, reducing risk with defective product, product recalls and customer satisfaction.

The Emydex system frees up resources to drive product quality improvements and frees up archive space and storage. It will give central management a holistic view through instant visibility of all factories in one centralised system, making KPI reporting easier and maximising safety, quality and compliance.

“The result is that resources have been freed up. Less paperwork, collection is instant, no errors, less time, no printing, archive space has been freed up, we have instant and easy retrieval of documents – everything has improved and is more accurate.” commented John Coleman, Dawn Group Technical Manager in Ireland

 

Finally, this accurate QMS data can drive operational processes and business decisions, helping continuous improvement by providing instant effect data.

“The Emydex Quality System is an innovative, adaptable software solution which fulfils the needs of Dawn Meats Group and continues to evolve through more areas of our factories, making them fit for the future.”
Julia Hewerdine, Group Food Safety & Quality Project Manager in Dawn Meats Group

 

Don’t wait! Embrace the future of quality management with electronic quality management
software.

If you want to learn more – contact Emydex in any of our global market offices in Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, or North America

Request a Demo

Silver Fern Farms welcomes Emydex to Fourth Beef plant in Te Aroha, New Zealand

Silver Fern Farms Expands Emydex Integration in Te Aroha

The Silver Fern Farms Emydex implementation continued following successful rollouts of the factory floor MES system in its primary beef processing plants in Belfast, Dargaville, and Hawera. Earlier this month (12/13 October), the fourth beef primal processing plant in Te Aroha, North Island, New Zealand, went live.

Commenting on the go-live, Matt Ballard, Chief Transformation Officer with Silver Fern Farms, said “this deployment went smoothly and the adoption by our frontline teams has been excellent”. 
 

Emydex rollouts are planned to continue in 2025, with the beef processing plants in Finegand and Pacific set to come online with the Emydex for primary processing, production control and traceability reporting.

 

Emydex CEO, David McMahon, added, “A huge thanks to our Emydex team working on the SFF project, including Carne De Vreede, Saffi Muhammed, Ashley Buckle, and Felsi Judith Lawrence in Emydex New Zealand, as well as Carl Brennan in Emydex Australia who flew over to New Zealand to support another successful go-live with no Emydex stoppages.”

 

If you want to learn more – contact Emydex in any of our global market offices in Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, or North America

Request a Demo