Malachy has over 20 years’ experience in the Irish and UK supermarket trade with a love of fresh foods especially. His food business career started at the tender age of nine, selling home-made toffee in the school yard and spending his summers working in a local horticulture business, growing salad vegetables, summer fruits and bedding plants. Malachy’s analytical nature and roles as a food technologist helped him to more effectively understand food production and the private label value chain. It was an excellent foundation for a career in supermarket buying.
Malachy’s first exposure to group buying was at SPAR where he contributed via the BIGS structure. Malachy worked as a Buying Director and Marketing Director at Aldi Ireland. He led Private Label range development across a variety of categories including fresh, frozen and non-foods. He launched Premium Tier ranges with particular success in fresh beef. He also led several key strategic marketing campaigns, successfully step-changing perceptions of Aldi’s private label product quality and provenance and helping to grow from <2% to >10% market share. From 2014 to 2016 Malachy was the Fresh Foods Commercial Category Director at Tesco Ireland, successfully turning around the business decline and re-positioning Tesco as the market leader through a volume led, private label strategy.
Since 2017 Malachy has been advising the supply base on retail insights, negotiation skills and strategy development.
Prior Experience
Education
