Redevelopment of CAFRE’s Greenmount and Loughry Campuses and the Development of New Beef Facilities at AFBI and CAFRE

Part of Ministerial Statement – in the Northern Ireland Assembly at 10:45 am on 11 May 2021.

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Photo of Edwin Poots Edwin Poots DUP 10:45, 11 May 2021

It does, yes. The major part of the investment is in the science centre and other facilities at the Loughry campus. It is critical that we are at the cutting edge of science, and Loughry is. We have very skilful people there. They need the facilities to go with those skills, and that is what this is about. It is about ensuring that we have the appropriate facilities along with the appropriate people. Dungannon, where there is a huge food sector, Cookstown, Portadown and other places in the mid-Ulster region and beyond will really benefit from having that kind of facility on their doorstep.

We are working with all the biggest companies in Northern Ireland — Coca-Cola, Moy Park, Dunbia, Linden Foods, Foyle Food Group, you name it — to ensure that, when supermarkets make enquiries about the product that they require, we are right up there in the packaging, provenance and viability of the food so that they can see the backup that there is in Northern Ireland. That is a real selling point and will provide a great opportunity for us as we go to more international markets. We recently broke into the American market for beef again after 20 years of being out of it. We will be getting into new markets. It is critical that we can sustain the businesses that are selling to those markets by having a qualitative backup, and that will exist.