Lakeland Dairies has announced that it has appointed Eamon Duignan as Member Relations Manager.

Duignan has been a part of the Member Relations Department since he joined the co-ops Graduate Programme in 2014.

Having graduated from UCD with a first class honours degree in Agricultural Science, the Cavan man recently completed a Diploma in Management in conjunction with the Irish Management Institute (IMI).

Duignan succeeds Dermot Coyle who retired after many years of service to the co-op.

The member relations programmes are designed to support dairy farmers with the most relevant information, advice and assistance across every aspect of their milk production and supply arrangements, Duignan said.

Meeting the needs of our many dairy customers worldwide begins on local milk supplying farms where we are fortunate to have a very high quality of milk supplied for processing.

“Our priority is to ensure long term and sustainable success for all of our milk producers and we will continue to work closely with them in achieving this aim,” he said.

Lakeland Dairies processes over one billion litres of milk annually collected from 2,500 high quality milk suppliers, across 15 counties in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland.

The co-op manufactures and exports an extensive range of top quality dairy food service and food ingredient products for blue-chip customers in 78 countries worldwide.

Lakeland Dairies, which has a head office in Co. Cavan, was founded back in 1990 following the merger of Killeshandra and Lough Egish co-ops.