Margin Matters
Buying better and selling smarter in the Irish food and drink sector
The buyer across the table negotiates for a living. You do it a few times a year.
That gap costs Irish food and drink businesses margin every year. This morning helps to close it.
Irish food and drink businesses are being squeezed from both ends. Input, energy and labour costs keep climbing. Retailer terms keep tightening.
Most owner-led firms handle all of it without a full-time commercial director. So the founder negotiates with the multiples. Often brilliantly, and usually on instinct. Almost always without an honest read on whether the terms are fair.
Bank of Ireland and Agile Executives are putting two leading industry experts in a room to change that.
Thursday 15 October 2026
- Time
- 10:00am to 1:00pm
- Venue
- Dynamic Space Events
60 Holly Ave, Stillorgan
Dublin, A94 X4P0 - Places
- 40 businesses
- Cost
- Free to attend
Both sides of the buying table
One spent his career buying. The other spent his selling to buyers like him.
Alan spent over nine years inside BWG Foods, working up from the graduate trading programme to Buying Director, running ambient trading for one of Ireland's largest retail and wholesale groups. That is the same seat buyers hold today at Musgrave and Sysco. He now helps Irish food and drink businesses reduce input costs, improve margin and handle supplier negotiations.
View profile
Paul spent 24 years at Boyne Valley Group, the last 13 as Group Commercial Director, selling into Ireland's retail multiples, wholesale and food service. Before that, over a decade running fresh food. He has sat on the other side of exactly the negotiation your business is having this year.
View profileYou bring a live challenge. You leave with better ideas
Nobody presents at you. You bring a live challenge or opportunity and work it in a small confidential room.
Whether what you are paying is normal or poor.
What buyers actually look for, from someone who used to be one.
The costs that are structural, and the ones that are simply habit.
If export is on your list, work it through with someone who has done it.
Businesses facing the same pressures, comparing notes honestly.
Practical advice on getting better prices from your customers and your suppliers.
Owner-led Irish food and drink businesses
- Selling into retail multiples, wholesale, food service or export
- Someone in the room who can make commercial decisions
- Anyone who has looked at a supplier invoice this year and felt uneasy
It is a working session. If you are early stage and looking for funding, our Get Funding Ready series is the better fit.
- No cost. Bank of Ireland and Agile Executives are investing in the sector.
- 40 businesses. Small enough that everyone gets real time.
- What is said in the room stays in the room. Everyone agrees to that on arrival.
- No presentations and no slides. You work on your own numbers.
Request a place
We have a deep network of food and drink specialists working with Irish businesses all year. Fractional commercial, procurement, operations and finance directors, in place when you need them. Browse the network.