Issue 181 (Week ending 15/07/2013)

These 2,190 companies represent 32% of the total number of firms in the sector and our stress test of them revealed that almost half are currently seen as being stable.

49% of the companies surveyed were seen as being at a low risk of failure with a further 22% at medium risk. The remaining 29% of companies were showing up as being high risk.

Our research also revealed variations in risk levels affecting companies in the various subsectors of the agri-food industry.

Of the 394 companies that were involved with farming, livestock and crops we saw that 56% were deemed to be at low risk of failure with 25% deemed to be high credit risks.

When we stress tested the 798 companies involved in food production we saw that just over half (51%) were low risk with only 23% listed as being high risk

The remaining 998 companies operate in the food selling sector. Here we saw that just over one in three (36%) were high risk. 43% of the companies surveyed in this sector were deemed to be low credit risks.

On an overall scale, the agri-food sector has accounted for just over 4% of insolvencies recorded in Ireland in the first half of 2013.