Present in Ireland for many years through local distributors and with a sales team and a sales manager attached to Virbac United Kingdom for the past ten years, Virbac has added a new subsidiary in January 2023. Objective: to expand our product offering, optimize distribution and consolidate our customer portfolio in Ireland in a complicated post-Brexit context.

A growing animal health market
With a market estimated today at 240 million euros¹ strongly dominated by farm animal business (around 1.5 million dairy cows and 800,000 suckler cows), animal health has grown considerably in Ireland over the last five years.

On the companion animals side, there are an estimated 450,000 dogs and 350,000 cats in the country with a relatively high medicalization rate compared to other markets (up to about 75%). Despite the growth of this segment and the very good results of our flagship products Milpro and Suprelorin, Virbac is most successful in the farmers' market with our brands Multimin and Bovigen Scour.

Strengthening our local collaboration
As in other European countries, veterinary practices are increasingly grouped in care facilities (around 800 in the country in 2023) owned by private groups. Unlike the UK, the lack of trade barriers within Ireland, which is part of the EU, and the agile structure designed for our new subsidiary will allow us to adapt to these changes in collaboration with our local partners.

Charlotte Covell, general manager VB UK & Ireland: “With the creation of this subsidiary, our strategy is to support the growth and the new market typology as close as possible to the needs of our local customers and partners by expanding our product and service portfolio (with a focus on the companion animal segment) while improving our overall margin. To that end, we intend to expand our sales team and create specialized roles."

^{1Kynetic data - February 2023}