Mr. Ryan McDonnell:

It was mentioned that smaller suppliers develop an own-brand product for us. Anyone who has been in our stores will see that we do entertain promoting the suppliers' trade brands. Where a supplier is small and is building its own brand, we put its products on promotion and advertise them in our leaflets and press material from time to time. Many companies we deal with produce our private label but also develop their own brand in the background.

Reference was made to Bord Bia's initiative to drive innovation and develop small businesses. In line with the Harvest 2020 strategy, entrepreneurship, innovation and up-skilling within businesses are very important. This is related to a question by Senator Brian Ó Domhnaill. With regard to moving forward with an Irish supply base, we spoke in our opening statement about developing our purchasing division in the order of up to 60 people. We have developed this in the past few years. We are putting a massive, conscious effort into gaining more customers and getting them to buy into our product range. We started as a cold discounter back in 1999 and 2000. As the very competitive marketplace evolved, we have had to evolve our product range. We will be only delighted to work with the smaller suppliers and Irish businesses. There are some phenomenal ones with serious production talent.