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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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Silver Fern Farms Extends Emydex Across Venison Processing with Two Successful Plant Go-Lives

Silver Fern Farms has extended its use of Emydex into venison processing, with successful go-lives at two New Zealand plants in five weeks. Rotorua went live on 8 June 2026, followed by Kennington, near Invercargill, on 6 July. The two sites are the seventh and eighth Silver Fern Farms plants to run Emydex, and mark the first venison implementation in Emydex’s 22-year history. 

A partnership that keeps growing 

Silver Fern Farms is New Zealand’s leading processor, marketer and exporter of premium lamb, beef and venison. The company produces around 30% of the country’s red meat across 14 plants, and has been an Emydex customer since 2019. 

The first phase of the partnership covered beef. Emydex was rolled out plant by plant across the beef network, with each site bringing its own processing flows, throughput and reporting needs. When the Pacific site went live in 2025, all six beef plants were running Emydex across the full primary butchery workflow, from the kill floor through liveweight and EID capture, grading, inspection and carcass-level traceability. The legacy CRS system was retired. 

Just as important, those six deployments settled a way of working: close collaboration between Emydex and site teams, phased testing, and a structured go-live that keeps production running. Venison put that model to the test. 

Building venison processing from the ground up 

Venison was a new species for the Emydex platform, so there was no existing configuration to lean on. The Emydex team worked with Silver Fern Farms subject matter experts to define the workflows, product structures and data capture requirements that deer processing needs. 

Both plants operate a manual chain with four Emydex data capture stations on the factory floor: 

  • Bolt station: records each animal at the start of processing 
  • Liveweight and EID station: captures live weights and electronic identification for lifetime traceability 
  • Inspection station: records veterinary and quality inspection outcomes on the line 
  • Grading station: captures carcass grades and weights, feeding supplier payments and yield data 

Each station feeds the plant’s kill line and traceability systems as the chain runs. 

Two go-lives in five weeks 

Rotorua came first, and with it the work of a first-of-species implementation: new workflows, new product structures and extensive testing before the switch. The go-live itself was straightforward. Silver Fern Farms reported that the system settled in quickly, and the few minor issues that surfaced were resolved by the Emydex support team within days. 

Kennington was built on the configuration proven at Rotorua and went live five weeks later. For a processor running multiple sites, this is the point that matters: once a species is proven on the platform, the next plant is faster to deliver, carries less risk and starts returning value sooner.

Rotorua 

Kennington 

Real-time visibility with Emydex BI 

Both venison plants run Emydex Business Intelligence, now standard across the Silver Fern Farms network. User access for every site is managed centrally from a single point, which cuts administration and keeps permissions consistent as the network grows. 

On the operations side, teams work from live dashboards rather than end-of-day reports. A Kill List view shows what is on the day’s kill and how it is progressing. A Carcass Summary breaks down carcasses by destination with weights and averages. A Contamination dashboard tracks rates against the government standard in real time, giving managers the chance to act before a problem grows. Daily Kill Sheets and carcass reports cover traceability and compliance across both sites. 

Across a network of our size, the real value is consistency. Emydex gives our teams a shared operational picture, so they spend less time pulling data together and more time acting on it. Decisions that previously depended on end-of-day reporting can now happen much closer to the floor, and Rotorua and Kennington were able to start delivering that value from the early stages of go-live.”

Matt Ballard, Chief Transformation Officer, Silver Fern Farms

Looking ahead 

With venison now proven across two sites, the groundwork is in place to extend the species further across the Silver Fern Farms network, and the wider programme of collaboration continues. 

Emydex provides production management, traceability and business intelligence software to meat, fish and food processors worldwide. If you are evaluating MES or traceability systems for venison, beef or any other species, get in touch to request a demo. 

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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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Emydex Visits Silver Fern Farms Te Aroha and Pacific Plants

During their latest operational tour across Australasia, Emydex CEO David McMahon and General Manager – Australasia Shane Hayes visited two Silver Fern Farms (SFF) beef processing plants in New Zealand: Te Aroha and Pacific (Hastings).

The visits reinforced the strong partnership between Emydex and New Zealand’s leading red meat processor and highlighted the continued evolution of digital transformation across the SFF network.

Strengthening a Proven Partnership

Silver Fern Farms has been working with Emydex since 2020 to modernise production management, traceability and data visibility across its beef plants.

With both Te Aroha and Pacific live on Emydex, all six SFF beef primary butchery sites are fully completed.

David McMahon commented:

“These visits reaffirm the strength of our collaboration with SFF and highlight the real impact that digital transformation can have on plant performance, visibility and decision-making across the network.”

Insights From the Plant Floor

The visits allowed the Emydex team to observe production flows, terminal usage and operator interactions directly on the factory floor. This hands-on engagement ensures that future improvements, refinements and upcoming deployments can be aligned with the operational reality of each site.

Shane Hayes added:

“It was great to meet the plant teams in Te Aroha and Pacific and see firsthand how they’re using Emydex day-to-day. Their feedback is essential as we continue to improve and scale the solution across new species and plants.”

The Emydex team would also like to acknowledge the support received during the visits. Special thanks to Jeff Hulena for travelling to shadow both plant tours, and to Dylan Marsh for accompanying the Pacific visit. We also appreciate the time and insights shared by plant managers Namu Searancke-Henderson at Te Aroha and Cory Hogg at Pacific, who hosted the team on site.

Go-Lives at Pacific and Te Aroha

Both plants have successfully gone live on Emydex MES as part of Silver Fern Farms’ multi-year digital transformation programme, supported by strong collaboration between SFF and Emydex teams.

Pacific (Hastings)

The Pacific site completed its transition from a legacy CRS system to Emydex through a structured deployment, including a custom liveweight solution tailored to the site’s requirements and the rollout of SFF BI V2, providing enhanced data insights.

SFF’s Chief Transformation Officer, Matt Ballard, praised the progress, describing the milestone as a significant step forward for the beef network.

Te Aroha

Te Aroha was the fourth SFF beef primary butchery site to adopt Emydex MES, a deployment that has since proven highly stable and effective across all plant operations.

Its long-term performance continues to demonstrate the adaptability of the Emydex platform to different operational layouts and species-specific workflows.

Looking Ahead

With the beef network nearing completion, the next phase will focus on expansion into venison and lamb, continuous improvement initiatives and further standardisation across the SFF group.

The New Zealand plant visits strengthen collaboration and ensure both teams remain aligned as SFF advances its long-term digital transformation journey.

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