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Kepak Group: Twenty Years of Partnership with Emydex

Kepak Group has been recognised with a Customer Milestone Plaque celebrating twenty years of partnership with Emydex. The plaque was presented to Jeremy O’Callaghan, Group CIO at Kepak, recognising a relationship that has grown from individual plant projects into an important part of production operations across the Group. Over that time, the partnership has supported Kepak’s continued growth, helping strengthen production control, traceability and consistency across multiple sites.

Kepak was there close to the beginning. In Emydex’s first four years, when the company was five software engineers in an office in Damastown, the original kill line and boning hall software was built in collaboration with a small group of Irish and UK red meat processors. Kepak was one of them.

About Kepak Group

Founded in 1966 from a butcher’s shop in Dublin, Kepak is a family-owned food business delivering high-quality meat, prepared consumer foods and foodservice solutions at scale. Operating across Ireland and the UK, the business works in close partnership with customers, farmer suppliers and partners across the food chain. Its portfolio includes established brands such as Rustlers and Big Al’s, and Kepak was a founding member of Bord Bia’s Origin Green programme.

How it started

Before Emydex, Kepak was running production and billing systems built in-house. They were not integrated, they leaned heavily on a small number of key people, and they gave the business no real-time view of stocks, yields or traceability.

The production management platform went live at Clonee in 2006, followed by the beef processing system in 2009. It created clearer links across animal intake, processing, stock management, traceability, warehousing and dispatch, giving teams greater visibility and control throughout the production process.

From plant projects to a group platform

By 2010 Emydex was running end to end across Kepak’s beef plants at Clonee, Kilbeggan, Hacketstown, Athleague, Ballymahon and Cork, integrated to Microsoft Dynamics AX, with lamb kill lines following. Carcass management gave the business accurate stock from the point of kill through boning and dispatch. Work order control meant nothing could be processed on the floor without an order on the system. Warehouse scanning gave real-time stock down to scan level, with operators warned of discrepancies while they were still picking the order rather than after the fact.

The system was also successfully adopted on the factory floor, with experienced operators and supervisors quickly becoming confident in using it as part of their day-to-day work.

Speaking as part of Emydex’s own 20th anniversary in 2024, Jeremy O’Callaghan, Group CIO at Kepak, described what the years had added up to:

Emydex have been an integral part of the system delivery team for Kepak Group for almost two decades, supporting us in our business growth across multiple sites in both Ireland and the UK. They have worked with us through many challenges along the way.”

Twenty years on

Kepak Group Twenty Years of Partnership with Emydex

Twenty years ago, our focus was on creating a more consistent, real-time view of production across sites that each operated differently. Since then, the platform has evolved alongside Kepak, supporting greater visibility, control and traceability as our business has grown. Emydex has worked closely with our teams throughout that journey, adapting with us and helping us respond to changing operational needs.”

Jeremy O’Callaghan, Group CIO, Kepak Group

A great deal has changed in food processing over the past two decades. What a processor needs from a factory floor system has changed rather less: reliable data, clear control, and traceability that holds up when somebody asks for it. Twenty years of partnership reflects a shared commitment to reliability, continuous improvement and practical innovation. As Kepak has grown and evolved, Emydex has continued to work alongside its teams to support the changing needs of the business.

Kepak Group is one of a number of 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 Jeremy and everyone at Kepak Group, and thank you for the trust you have placed in our team over twenty years.

To learn more about how Emydex supports beef and lamb processors with production management, traceability and quality systems, visit our Beef Processing Software and Lamb Processing Software pages, or contact our team.

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Dawn Meats Group: More Than Twenty Years of Partnership with Emydex

More than twenty years after Dawn Meats Group first started working with Emydex, the partnership has been recognised with one of our twenty-year Customer Milestone Plaques. Earlier this month, the plaque was presented to Shane Slattery, Chief Information Officer at Dawn Meats Group, marking one of the longest-standing customer relationships in Emydex’s history.

About Dawn Meats Group

Founded in County Waterford in 1980, Dawn Meats Group is a family-owned business and a leading beef and lamb processor. The group employs more than 12,000 people across thirteen countries, operates eleven sites in Ireland, six in New Zealand and thirteen in the UK, and supplies retailers, manufacturers and foodservice customers in over 70 countries. Each year it processes around 1.6 million cattle, 8 million sheep and 70,000 deer, sourced from 30,000 farmers and 4,300 farmer shareholders.

How it started

Dawn Meats first began working with Emydex in 2005, in our own early years as a company, and started rolling out Emydex Production Management across the group in 2008. Grannagh, Rathdowney and Charleville went live in Ireland, followed in November 2009 by Highland Meats in Scotland, where the first phase centred on Carcass Management integrated to the plant’s existing kill line.

Martin Curran, then Group Factory Systems Manager at Dawn Meats, said at the Highland go-live:

It’s a credit to the joint Emydex/Dawn team that we are now in a position where with adequate planning, Emydex module roll-outs can be completed within a short space of time without any interruption to production.”

Within four years of the first rollout, the system was operating as the group standard for factory floor data capture, production control and traceability reporting in eleven of the thirteen plants in the group at that time, covering everything from carcass intake through boning, packing and dispatch.

Shane Slattery said at the time:

Emydex is a central pillar of our strategic IT plan going forward, and our goal now is to concentrate on completing the roll-out of Emydex to our primary processing sites by year end. This plan may seem aggressive, but we believe that it is achievable on account of the inherent flexibility of the core Emydex product to handle any differences in the business processes required in our disparate sites.”

What changed along the way

Quite a lot. In 2015 Dawn went live with Emydex Warehouse Management at its cold store and distribution site near Birmingham, covering goods inwards, blast freezing, put-away, picking and dispatch.

Then came quality. Dawn Meats’ factory checks had been paper-based until that point: printed, handed out, filled in, countersigned, filed, and physically retrieved whenever an auditor asked for them. The Emydex Quality Management System went live in two Irish plants in 2019. By 2024 it was running across fourteen primary processing plants in Ireland and the UK, and Dawn’s own technical team had built close to 500 quality workflows in it themselves, from abattoir and boning hall pre-op checks to GMP audits and metal detector checks, without needing to involve our developers or their internal IT department.

More than twenty years on

Dawn Meats Group More Than Twenty Years of Partnership with Emydex

Twenty years is a long time in any technology relationship. Over that period Emydex has become part of how we run our plants, across production, traceability and quality. The reliability of the system matters, and so does the fact that the people behind it understand meat processing. We are pleased to mark the milestone and we look forward to what comes next.”

Shane Slattery, Chief Information Officer, Dawn Meats Group

Two decades brings a lot of change: new sites, new customers, new regulations, new people on both sides. What matters is that the system has kept earning its place through all of it. The milestone plaques are our way of recognising that.

Dawn Meats Group is one of a number of 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 Shane and everyone at Dawn Meats Group and thank you for the trust you have placed in our team over more than twenty years.

To learn more about how Emydex supports beef and lamb processors with production management, traceability and quality systems, visit our Beef Processing Software and Lamb Processing Software pages, or contact our team.

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Ashbourne Meat Processors: Ten Years of Partnership with Emydex

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

Ashbourne Meat Processors: Ten Years of Partnership with Emydex

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.

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Emydex at VIV Europe 2026

VIV Europe 2026 marked the 25th edition of the event, bringing together professionals from over 70 countries at Jaarbeurs Utrecht in the Netherlands for three days of innovation, collaboration and knowledge sharing across the global animal protein industry.

As one of the sector’s leading international exhibitions, the event provided an excellent platform for manufacturers, suppliers and technology providers to exchange ideas, explore new technologies and strengthen industry relationships.

Emydex was proud to exhibit alongside BAADER, welcoming customers, partners and industry professionals from around the world. The event also provided a valuable opportunity to connect with industry partners, including Mike Wardlaw from LINCO Food Systems, and strengthen relationships across the food processing industry.

Valuable Conversations Across the Industry

Throughout the exhibition, David McMahon and Robert Tobin represented Emydex, reconnecting with existing customers, meeting new industry contacts and discussing the evolving challenges facing food processors.

Conversations focused on key priorities across the industry, including digital transformation, traceability, quality management, operational efficiency and the increasing need for real-time visibility across production operations.

These discussions reinforced the continued importance of connected software solutions that help processors improve performance, strengthen compliance and make more informed operational decisions.

Thank You

We would like to sincerely thank everyone who visited the Emydex team during VIV Europe 2026.

Whether you stopped by to learn more about our software, discuss an existing project or explore future opportunities, we truly appreciate your time and the valuable conversations shared throughout the event.

We also extend our thanks to BAADER for another successful exhibition and for the opportunity to exhibit alongside their team.

If we did not have the opportunity to meet in Utrecht, or if you would like to learn more about how Emydex helps food processors improve traceability, quality management and factory floor performance, we would be delighted to hear from you.

Get in touch with our team to arrange a personalised demonstration and discover how Emydex can support your operation.

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Emydex Recognised as One of Ireland’s Best Workplaces 2026

Emydex has been named one of Ireland’s Best Workplaces™ 2026 by Great Place to Work® Ireland.

This recognition follows our recent Great Place to Work Certification and places Emydex among organisations recognised for building high-trust, high-performance workplace cultures nationwide.

This year, more than 30,000 employees across Ireland participated in the national assessment process. Inclusion in the Best Workplaces™ list reflects comparative performance among certified organisations and reinforces the strength of our internal culture.

From Certification to National Recognition

In September, we shared the news of our Great Place to Work Certification, highlighting the strong employee engagement results achieved across our teams. That milestone marked an important validation of the culture we continue to strengthen across our global operations.

Being named among Ireland’s Best Workplaces™ represents a further step forward. It confirms that our workplace standards not only meet recognised benchmarks, but stand out within a competitive national landscape.

Culture as a Strategic Driver

As a technology partner to the global food processing industry, Emydex operates in complex, performance-driven environments. Delivering consistent results across regions requires clarity of leadership, accountability at every level and strong cross-functional collaboration.

We view culture as a strategic driver of performance. The strength of our internal alignment directly supports the reliability, innovation and long-term partnerships we build with customers worldwide.

Leadership Perspective

Commenting on the recognition, David McMahon, CEO of Emydex Technology Ltd, said:

As Emydex continues to grow across international markets, culture remains a strategic priority. Recognition as one of Ireland’s Best Workplaces™ reinforces that we are building a resilient organisation, capable of sustaining performance while staying true to our values.

Strong companies are built on strong teams, and this acknowledgement reflects the calibre and commitment of our people.”

A Foundation for Sustainable Growth

As Emydex expands across Europe, Australasia and North America, maintaining a cohesive and high-performing workplace culture remains central to our long-term strategy.

Recognition among Ireland’s Best Workplaces™ 2026 affirms that we are building not only scalable technology solutions for the food processing sector, but also a strong organisational foundation designed to support continued international growth.

We thank our teams across all regions whose professionalism and commitment make this possible.

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Staunton Foods & Emydex: A 12 Year Partnership in Precision Pork Processing

When Staunton Foods first partnered with Emydex in 2014, the goal was clear: build a production management platform capable of supporting one of Ireland’s leading pork processing plants with reliability, accuracy, and visibility. Over twelve years later, that decision has shaped a digitally enabled factory environment that continues to evolve and support the company’s growth and reputation for quality.

A Heritage Processor with Modern Ambition

Staunton Foods, based in Timoleague in the heart of West Cork, has long been recognised as one of Ireland’s leading pork processors. Established decades ago and deeply integrated into the regional agricultural economy, the business has always prided itself on quality, animal welfare, and operational integrity.

By 2014, the plant’s throughput and increasing data demands meant its older legacy factory-floor systems supporting kill-line operations, livestock payments, and boning-hall reporting were being pushed to their limits. Stauntons needed a platform capable of meeting modern demands, not just in performance, but also in compliance, traceability, and integration with financial and partner systems.

Introducing a Digital Backbone for the Kill Floor

The first phase of the collaboration focused on modernising kill‑line operations. Emydex introduced structured data capture at lairage, grading, and slaughter points, enabling Staunton Foods to shift from fragmented legacy processes to a single, consistent source of operational truth.

Key benefits from this foundation included:

  • Greater accuracy in livestock payments: Reliable grading, consistent data capture, and clear traceability records helped establish full transparency for producers supplying the plant.
  • A unified view of kill‑line performance: Daily operations became easier to analyse, enabling supervisors to identify issues earlier, reduce variation, and maintain throughput targets.
  • Confidence in compliance and audit readiness: With consistent, structured data in place, Staunton could respond more effectively to retailer, regulatory, and customer audit requirements.

Extending the Platform to the Boning Hall and Beyond

Following the successful stabilisation of kill‑line processes, Staunton Foods extended its Emydex system into the boning hall and downstream production areas. This included support for:

  • Yield reporting and loss identification
  • Stock visibility across raw, WIP, and finished goods
  • Handheld scanning for movement, labelling, and dispatch
  • Packing and palletisation workflows
  • Enhanced traceability linking carcass data to downstream outputs

Operators benefited from simpler workflows and fewer manual touchpoints, while supervisors gained more precise insight into cutting yields, material usage, and batch-level performance.

For a business with high throughput, narrow margins, and strict quality requirements, this transparency has been pivotal.

Integrations that Strengthen the Business

One of Staunton Foods’ most significant long-term advantages has been the integration of Emydex data with financial and partner systems. Over the years, interfaces have been introduced and refined to support:

  • Sage accounting
  • XML data exchange with partner processors and cold stores
  • Automated consolidation of production and commercial data

This connected ecosystem means operations are no longer siloed. Instead, the company benefits from an information flow that joins production, finance, planning, and logistics into a cohesive picture.

Resilience Through Continuous Improvement

What makes the Staunton–Emydex partnership stand out is not only the depth of the system but the consistency of improvements over more than a decade. These have included:

  • Performance tuning to keep pace with throughput growth
  • Software updates and compatibility enhancements
  • Adjustments to accommodate new commercial requirements
  • Improvements in handheld scanning and data‑capture workflows
  • Extensions to reporting and operational visibility

This pattern of steady enhancement has ensured the system never stagnates and continues to evolve alongside Staunton’s needs.

A Perspective from Staunton Foods Management

For us, reliability is everything. The plant moves fast, and we need systems that keep pace without getting in the way. What Emydex has delivered over the years is consistency: consistent data, consistent performance, and consistent support. It gives our team confidence on the kill floor, in the boning hall, and in the office. Emydex has grown with us. We consider it an integral part of how we manage our business today”
John O’Regan, Staunton Foods Management

Unlocking Smarter Decision‑Making

Today, Staunton Foods uses its Emydex environment not just as a transactional production tool but as an operational intelligence platform. Supervisors and managers benefit from:

  • Clearer trend analysis based on multi-year data
  • Better forecasting informed by accurate yields and run‑rate insights
  • More proactive decision‑making informed by real-time visibility
  • Faster resolution of issues uncovered by transparent data flows

This has helped strengthen margins, control waste, and improve operational discipline across the factory.

Supporting a Sustainable, Future-Ready Irish Processor

As the Irish pork sector faces competitive pressures, regulatory expectations, and rapid shifts in market conditions, the partnership between Staunton Foods and Emydex provides a stable foundation for continued growth.

Staunton’s commitment to maintaining a modern, data-driven production environment ensures the business remains resilient, responsive, and aligned with evolving industry demands.

A Partnership Built to Last

Twelve years on from the original go-live, Staunton Foods continues to rely on Emydex as a key strategic partner, not just a software vendor. The relationship is defined by collaboration, mutual trust, and a shared goal of maintaining one of Ireland’s most respected pork-processing operations.

The result is a quiet, steady success story: a modern MES driving real value in one of Ireland’s most traditional industries.

Interested in how a data-driven MES could support your processing operation?
Speak with our European team to explore how Emydex works in practice.
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