Four transition year students from Holy Rosary College, Mountbellew have qualified for the national finals of the Certified Irish Angus Schools Competition, taking place this month. Their final presentation and interview is due to be held on April 15 via Hopin conferencing.
Building on the great successes by Holy Rosary College in previous years in this national competition, the current team of TY students are hoping to go one step further this year and have their sights firmly set on becoming one of five lucky schools to win five Irish Angus calves that will then be reared by the students over the following 18 months on one of their farms. Team members Amy Higgins, Cormac Delaney, Peter O’Neill, and Oisín Colleran have worked hard to reach the national finals which will be held virtually during the month of April.
The group come from quite different farming backgrounds. We decided to get involved in the Certified Irish Angus Beef Competition as we felt it was a great opportunity to learn more about the origins, characteristics, and qualities of the Irish Angus breed and learn the many benefits of Certified Irish Angus Beef production to the farmer, the environment, and of course to the consumer over all other beef breeds.
We have now progressed to the final stage of the competition (interview stage ) which will be held virtually. Stages two and three have been combined as the national finals are now online so the winners of the five calves will be chosen from the final interviews combined with project work and promotion campaigns completed. We have been working hard on our promotional plans, creating awareness of the breed and promoting Certified Irish Angus Breed through a wide variety of platforms from traditional media, ie, newspapers and radio, to the many social media platforms which gives us access to a wide audience.
We have learned that there are endless benefits to rearing the breed and purchasing Certified Irish Angus comparable to other beef breeds. Everyone from the farmer to the producers to the consumers require full traceability from farm to fork. The meat is of the highest quality and is Board Bia approved.
The competition focuses on creativity and innovation in the promotion and marketing of Certified Irish Angus Beef to a worldwide audience. We have designed and ordered a wide range of promotional products incorporating the Certified Angus Beef logo with a huge emphasis on "shop local" where possible, which is why we are getting all our promotional products for Certified Angus Beef produced by local small businesses in Ireland as we believe that by doing this that we are not only supporting local businesses but also representing what Certified Irish Angus Beef stands for. We also have set up all our Certified Irish Angus Beef social media platforms and have started our promotional campaign. Ireland's unique production of primarily grass fed Certified Irish Angus Beef gives us a massive marketing advantage over our competitors given our soil quality, favourable grass growing climate, and the small to medium farming family holdings makes us unique in the world for producing environmentally sustainable top quality Certified Irish Angus Beef which consumers can trust.
We would like to extend our gratitude to everyone in our school. They have been so supportive and encouraging throughout our progress in the competition so far. We would also like to say a massive thank you to Ms Kelly, she has been a fantastic help to us and is always so willing to answer any questions we have.
We would also like to say a special thank you to Kevin Healy and Saoirse Loftus from our school who completed in this competition last year. They inspired us to apply and do our best in this competition. They had immense success last year being one of the 35 teams that got through to the national finals in Croke Park. We hope to build on their success and bring home the calves this year. This competition has provided us with an opportunity to build and develop new skills, contacts, and friendships which will last a lifetime.
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