Ireland
Irish Country Meats
Irish Casings
Ashbourne Meat Processors
A leader in the supply of quality Irish beef products
Ashbourne Meat Processors is one of Ireland’s most successful exporters of premium chilled beef products. Founded in 1985, the company exports high-quality products all over the world and is proud to be recognised as a family whose expertise and knowledge is passed down from one generation to another. There are nearly 200 people in the company family working in two facilities in the centre of Ireland – Roscrea (slaughtering and cold-storage facilities) and Naas (deboning and cold storage).
Ashbourne Meat Processors is a firm believer in leveraging advanced technology and production facilities.

What Ashbourne Meat Says
“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% and that’s a huge achievement.”
PJ Butler, Roscrea Plant Manager, Ashbourne Meat Processors
Challenge
Ashbourne Meat Processors’ two plants were essentially working in isolation from each other on outdated systems that required a lot of manual input and data entry. The abattoir in Roscrea would take in livestock and create the relevant paperwork. When the carcasses were transferred to Ashbourne Meat Processors’ facility in Naas (and to other facilities operated by the company’s clients all over the country), new paperwork would have to be created. This was extremely inefficient and left the company open to human error, duplication and lack of visibility and control.
There were also issues with compliance as the legacy systems used in both operations were not integrated with the Department of Agriculture systems and so there was a need for even more data entry.
Solution
Emydex is the acknowledged leader when it comes to process development for the food industry and when Ashbourne Meat Processors decided to overhaul the IT infrastructure and embrace the latest processing technology, they called Emydex.
Following a project scoping exercise, the team agreed to divide the job into two phases – one for the slaughter plant in Roscrea and the other for the Deboning operation in Naas. Connecting the two facilities was an obvious but important improvement.
In phase one, The Naas Deboning operation was upgraded by Emydex to deliver an end-to-end factory floor solution. Today Emydex handles the entire processing procedures within this plant, from Intake, Into / Out of Boning, Packing, Dispatch and Warehousing. Emydex also generates all the appropriate Dispatch Documentation, transfers traceability data to customers and allows for full forward and backward traceability. Prior to Emydex’s introduction, Work Orders were paper-based and were phoned down to the operators. Now this is all controlled within Emydex which means there is less likelihood of human error and the whole process is now more streamlined and controlled.
In phase two, the abattoir and cold storage facility 100 kilometres away in Roscrea, County Tipperary, was completely overhauled with everything from animal intake, supplier POs, inter-company paperwork and all procedures – from processing to packing, including sales picking – newly streamlined and automated. Labelling from boning through storage and out in orders was part of the specification as was the automatic electronic generation of all documentation. Real-time data is now updated constantly between the two plants and a new dispatch system created.
Outcome
Animal intake at the abattoir is now seamlessly and automatically integrated with the Government’s veterinary body, AIMS. Ear tags are scanned and all animal data is confirmed and registered and the Department of Agriculture is notified automatically. This improvement alone saves thousands of man-hours every year and completely eliminates human error at the intake point.
There used to be two separate systems and all sorts of mistakes were created by so much manual data entry. This led to delays in cattle payments and problems in registering the passport details of some animals. Now there is just one system and those errors have been eliminated.
Everything from animal intake to carcass dispatch and box generation is automated, tracked, reported and visible all the way from start to finish.
Overall, and almost immediately, efficiency was improved, paperwork virtually eliminated, errors drastically reduced, and profitability increased throughout the company.
Beef Industry
Industry Updates
Emydex & Sustainable Beef. The Journey Goes Live
Supporting a modern beef processing operation in Nebraska Emydex is proud to announce the go‑live of its software…
Find Out MoreEmydex site visit to Sustainable Beef, Nebraska
Visiting Sustainable Beef in Nebraska Earlier this month in Mid-November, Shane Hayes, Emydex Product Manager and Cody Musclow, Project Manager with…
Find Out MoreA 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…
Find Out MoreSilver 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…
Find Out MoreEmydex Software: A Game-Changer for Beef Processors
Emydex, a leading provider of software solutions for the meat processing industry, is celebrating its 20th anniversary in…
Find Out MoreFarmer Bookings & Feedback via Livestock Portal
A new web-based appointment booking and feedback system.
Find Out MoreStaunton Foods
A pork abattoir and cutting plant in Ireland
Staunton Foods is a privately owned pork abattoir and cutting plant in Timoleague, West Cork. Founded in 1950 Staunton Foods is now one of the main pig meat processors in Ireland. Since opening the purpose built factory in 1996, Stauntons have been supplying quality Pork and Bacon products for over 60 years both to domestic and export markets.
Subsequent expansion of the factory in 2005, 2008 and again in 2012 has allowed Staunton Foods to grow to become one of the main pig meat processors in Ireland.
After the factory expansion in 2012, Staunton Foods chose to implement Emydex’s Pig Kill Line and livestock payments system in their abattoir operation.
The system provides real-time reporting on kill line throughput, grading, destinations, suppliers, as well as a kill line yield analysis.

Working with Emydex
Emydex handles the slaughterhouse operations from data entry of intake to the Lairage, through to pig grading and supplier payments. Emydex exports invoices to their existing financial accounting system.
Our News
Industry Updates
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…
Find Out MoreSilver 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…
Find Out MoreGlobal Impact: How Emydex Software is Transforming the Pork Processing Industry
Emydex Technology has been a cornerstone in the pork processing industry, providing Pork Processing Software solutions that enhance…
Find Out MoreDawn Pork & Bacon, 17 years on Emydex and counting
Emydex was founded in April 2004, so Dawn P&B was one of the very first customers to go live with an Emydex software system.
Find Out MoreFarmer Bookings & Feedback via Livestock Portal
A new web-based appointment booking and feedback system.
Find Out MoreEmydex CAPS off year with Livestock Payments System
Emydex CAPS off the year with a new Livestock Settlements System For most Meat processors, the procurement of…
Find Out MoreRosie & Jim
A rapidly growing processing company in Dublin
Rosie & Jim is an Irish food production company established in 1997 when award-winning Craft Butcher Jimmy McLoughin established Quality First Limited. He began producing gourmet chicken products for supply to butcher shops and restaurants. Before long, the rapidly growing business moved to larger premises in Inchicore, Dublin 8. At this point, Rosie joined to assist with running the business.
Rosie and Jimmy McLoughlin are a husband and wife team who share a passion for wholesome quality food.
Rosie and Jim supply distributors to the retail, food-service and catering trades with ready to cook chicken products such as Breaded fresh & Frozen Chicken products, Wraps & Pasties.
Rosie and Jim approached Emydex in 2016 with a view to implementing a factory-wide Production Control and Traceability Reporting IT system door-to-door. The company had no existing factory floor IT system in place, operating manual processes instead, which meant excessive recording of internal processes manually on paper, which was both laborious and time-consuming, and offered little by way of real-time production control and traceability reporting.
The company had no real insight into the quantity or value of their existing stocks, resulting in procurement planning issues. Unsure of what current stocks were available to fulfill production orders, often resulted in over-ordering of stock, and the holding of excess stock of raw materials, dry goods and ingredients on-site than was needed.

Working with Emydex
“By the end of the first week most of the production team using the system were already comfortable with using it. You could visibly see them speeding up when going through the individual screens... Overall, I feel the project was a successful implementation, and the new system has been well received by our production team, operators and supervisors.”
Peter Turner, Financial Controller, Rosie & Jim
Our News
Industry Updates
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…
Find Out MoreA 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…
Find Out MoreSilver 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…
Find Out MoreEmydex drives Quality to New Heights at Murray’s Chicken in New York
Implementing Emydex at Murray’s Chicken Founded by Murray Bresky in 1992, Murray’s Chicken is dedicated to the local…
Find Out MoreEliminate costly carton rejections with Emydex and Meat Messaging
The international trade of food products has over time become highly competitive with many large multinational companies emerging…
Find Out MoreForresters takes off
How a family business scaled up to become an industry powerhouse Meet the client Established in 1972 and…
Find Out More