Food First Consulting

Why Food First Consulting?

“We help buyers and suppliers do better business together”

Food First Consulting was founded by Malachy O’Connor, a passionate food industry expert. Over the years, Malachy saw so many potentially great deals fall through, not because buyers and suppliers disagreed, but because they were on completely different pages, with completely different needs. Our vision is that those great, once-in-a-decade deals, don’t need to be so rare. Our mission is to help suppliers and buyers do better business together by understanding each other’s needs, by bridging the gap between them.

Food First Consulting bridges that gap.

Based in Ireland, we have a unique knowledge of the retail world with a broad skill set thanks to almost 25 years of experience in food technology, buying, buying director, and marketing director roles, in a variety of c-store, multiple, and discount supermarket retailers.

We offer 3 core services:

Retail Insights

Negotiation Skills

Strategy Development

Food First Consulting provides services to a broad spectrum of clients.

Start-ups and smaller businesses can access advice either directly via Food First Consulting or via Enterprise Ireland where Malachy is a business mentor.
SME and larger branded businesses can access support directly via Food First Consulting.
Private Label focused manufacturers and retailers can engage via IPLC (International Private Label Consult).

GET IN TOUCH

We’re eager to discuss your business needs and answer any questions you may have.

WHAT WE DO

Everything we do is based on our values: Impact, Comradeship, and Creativity.

We believe in living and working with integrity and empathy so that we can have a positive impact on the world. We’re stronger together, as comrades, we encourage and challenge each other, we have each other’s backs. And we are diverse, so we take perspective and look at things differently finding creative solutions in unlikely places.

Food First Consulting was set up to bridge gaps. We do that in three ways.

Retail Insights

Malachy will help you get you inside the heads of the major retailers and help you do more and better business by understanding their pressures, their dynamics, what they want and what they need.

Negotiation Skills

Malachy will train you and your team to negotiate effectively with potentially bigger and more powerful opponents. Malachy can also strategically support on specific negotiations.

Strategy Development

Malachy will work with your team to develop a business strategy, be that for your entire business or with a specific segment or customer in mind.

IPLC

IPLC (International Private Label Consulting) is a boutique consulting firm specialising in strategic consultancy services and project management support to manufacturers and retailers.

With a broad and unrivalled understanding of the Private Label industry, we help our clients with a pragmatic and action-orientated approach.

Christmas 2021 Report

Introduction Christmas 2020 was all about protecting vulnerable relatives, avoiding big family gatherings and as a result we saw an increased number of smaller get-togethers which had a knock-on impact on demand for smaller portion sizes. New Year 2021 brought hope of normality through the vaccine roll-out and most people had planned for a relatively […]

Aldi, Dunnes, Grocery, Grocery Insights, lidl, market share, retail, supermarkets, SuperValu, Tesco

22nd March 2021

Grocery Trends to 21st February 2021

Headlines The Kantar data for the 12 weeks ending 21st February shows a growth of 16.3% in the take-home grocery market. This represents an extra €450 million spent by Irish households on take-home groceries. This is in line with the trend on the previous 12-week read and reflects the steady nature of this long, drawn […]

Aldi, Dunnes, Grocery, Grocery Insights, grocery retail, lidl, supermarkets, SuperValu, Tesco

15th February 2021

Market Data 12 w/e 24th January 2021

Headlines The Kantar Worldpanel data for the 12 weeks to January 24th sees Dunnes stay in first place on 22.6%. SuperValu edge ahead of Tesco to take 2nd place on 22.1% and Tesco are third on 21.9%. Lidl are fourth with 11.9% and Aldi are fifth with 11.3%. The market grew by +16.4% during this […]

Clients