DUBLIN (Reuters) - Irish nutrition company Glanbia (I:GL9) has begun stockpiling products in Britain as it works on the assumption that Britain will leave the European Union without a withdrawal agreement, its chief executive said.
Ireland's large agri-food sector exports over 50 percent of its cheese to the United Kingdom, although Glanbia, the largest manufacturer of cheddar cheese in the world, booked just 3 percent of its 2.3 billion euros of revenue in the UK in 2017.
"We have stocks in the UK, more than we would normally have," Siobhan Talbot said in a podcast interview posted by the Irish Times Newspaper on its website, adding that the company had taken more warehousing capacity in the UK.
"We are very much planning for a no deal at this stage, we have all the supply chain alternatives, all those pieces that one would expect but that does not mean that that would be easy and that does not mean that that wouldn't be without its implications."
A leading supplier of protein supplements for gym goers, Glanbia operates in 32 countries and distributes products to four times that amount.
It has nevertheless sought to cut the reliance of its Irish arm on the UK market, announcing plans in recent months to open a 130 million euro mozzarella cheese facility and a 140 million euro continental cheese manufacturing factory to serve other European markets from Ireland.