Ireland redirects record milk output into medical nutrition and protein exports

Ireland's milk moves up the value chain

Ireland produced a record 8.8 billion litres of milk last year, but only around one in every 18 litres reaches supermarket shelves as liquid milk, according to the Irish Examiner. The rest becomes butter, cheese, casein and skim milk powder, the base ingredients that once made Ireland one of the world's largest producers of infant formula. That model is now shifting toward higher-value medical nutrition and protein products aimed at ageing populations and health-conscious consumers.

The clearest sign came in May, when French dairy group Danone announced plans to invest in its Macroom site in Co Cork, adding 230 jobs to make specialised liquid nutrition and protein drinks. The company has lodged plans with Cork County Council for an Advanced Medical Nutrition facility due to open in late 2028. It will be Ireland's first liquid medical nutrition plant, producing drinks for cancer patients, stroke recovery and frailty rather than powdered baby formula.

Demographics close one door and open another

The same demographic shift is closing older operations. In March, the last staff left Wyeth Nutritionals in Askeaton, Co Limerick, ending 50 years of infant formula production. Nestlé announced the closure in October 2023, putting 542 jobs at risk, and pointed to collapsing births in China, the plant's almost exclusive market, which fell from around 18 million a year in 2016 to fewer than nine million by 2023. Nestlé had acquired the plant through its $11.85bn purchase of Pfizer Nutrition in 2012; the closure cost €472.4m in exceptional charges and removed a buyer for roughly 50 million gallons of milk a year from mid-west farms.

The export data confirms the turn. Bord Bia reports Irish dairy exports hit a record €7.3bn in 2025, up 14%, with more than 1.6 million tonnes shipped to some 140 markets. Butter (€2bn, up 24%) and cheese (€1.7bn, up 19%) now account for half of all dairy export value, up from 41% two years earlier. Exports of specialised nutritional powders, which include infant formula base, fell by around a quarter to €630m on weaker Asian demand.

Medical nutrition and the protein race

The global medical nutrition market was valued at around $31bn in 2023 and is forecast to reach $52bn by 2033. Danone is more bullish, estimating €30bn by 2030 with the Chinese market doubling; the same country whose falling birth rate emptied Askeaton is expected to become a major buyer of nutrition for its elderly. Danone's medical nutrition arm, built on Nutricia (acquired 2007), generates around €3bn a year, and its Fortimel and Nutrison brands form a €1bn platform. The group has invested €50m in Poland and €70m in France and bought Real Food Blends, Functional Formularies and Kate Farms in five years. Rivals Abbott, with its Ensure brand and about 6,000 staff across 10 Irish sites, and Nestlé Health Science are chasing the same patients.

Irish co-ops are chasing the protein. Tirlán, Europe's largest cheddar producer and second-largest whey protein isolate manufacturer, announced a €126m whey processing facility at Ballyragget in November, due on stream by mid-2027. Whey protein isolate has risen roughly fivefold in value, to as much as €28,000 a tonne. Demand is driven partly by gym culture and increasingly by GLP-1 weight-loss drugs such as Ozempic, Wegovy and Mounjaro, now taken by as many as one in 10 American adults, which has spurred a "companion nutrition" market. Sports nutrition alone accounts for an estimated 45% of global growth in high-protein powder demand, with whey and casein over half of that market. Carbery, Dairygold, which commissioned one of Europe's largest casein plants at Mitchelstown in 2025, Kerry, Lakeland and Arrabawn are all investing along the same lines.