In 1994, CEO Barry Lynch co-founded Irish Farm Computers Ltd (AgriNet) in Kells, Co. Meath. Since then he has helped transform it into one of Ireland’s leading agricultural software companies.

What does AgriNet do?
A typical Irish beef or dairy farmer focuses on three main areas. Firstly to grow grass efficiently, secondly to feed a cow or bullock efficiently and thirdly to get something out the other end, and returning cash to the bank account. Our software helps them do this. 
Our farmer clients require a comprehensive service, and because of that we deliberately focus on providing a complete range of software solutions across grass measurement, cash-flow and accounts – plus recording all the history of the animals in the herd.
“Farmers are expected to be a combination of a vet, a herdsman, a grassland expert and an accountant.”
Farmers must be multi-skilled
Farmers are expected to be a combination of a vet, a herdsman, a grassland expert and an accountant which often makes it a challenging environment to sell software services into. Essentially farmers are time poor, and if the scrapers are blocked in the shed, you have to go and fix them, which generally takes priority over data entry.
At what point did you know you had a viable business?
We launched the business in 1994, and like any other small business, at the start, it was really tough. In the first three years, it meant scrambling to get a piece of software that was good enough, then calling out and very quickly, getting feedback to try and learn what our clients wanted, followed by making sure to give it to them in the next version.
It was only in 1997 that everything began to click into place when a farmer Co-Op called, Progressive Genetics invested in us. By then we had a better understanding of what

John Commins started as a farmer and has since become an award-winning food producer. 
In 2005, artisan farmer and food producer, John Commins began farming Piedmontese cattle, a breed mainly snow-white in colour and native to Italy, from his 120-acre family farm, located near Thurles in Co. Tipperary. He now supplies this award-winning high-end beef into supermarkets, restaurants and online across Ireland. Here, John talks about the journey he has travelled and his plans to grow the business into the future.
“The beef contains fewer calories and less cholesterol than chicken.”

What is Irish Piedmontese beef?
Over a decade and a half ago, I travelled to Italy to source our initial breeding stock. Piedmontese are impressive cattle but what impressed me most was the eating quality of the meat – and the surprising fact that it contains fewer calories and less cholesterol than that of chicken. It also has the lowest fat percentage in the meat of any description, with even less fat than salmon or venison. The reason for this is due to a natural change that developed in the breed about 200 years ago. It’s down to a myostatin gene that all cattle have but with which Piedmontese beef are doubly endowed – a trait which has been refined by Italian cattle breeders over the years.
“I leased a unit, buying all of the equipment we needed and employed our own butcher to work for us.”
Why did you go into the food business?
At the time there was a very lucrative trade from Ireland to Italy for ‘E’ and ‘U’ grade lean type weanlings. Initially, we considered supplying our weanlings back to the Italian market, and although the Italians were very interested in buying them, we were unable to supply at the volumes required. From tasting, I knew it was fabulous meat and that

Blas na hEireann celebrates the best of Irish food producers and more importantly, it has created a network of Irish producers that work together. Pat Carroll looks at the rise of the Irish food awards.
On Monday, November 12, Bank of Ireland will host the ‘Food Series 2018’ at its Limerick Workbench. Local Blas na hEireann 2018 finalists will attend and showcase samples of their produce while the Blas 2018 Buyer’s Directory will be also be launched.
It’s a free-to-attend event and all are welcome to register here. 
The start of Blas
When people hear the word ‘startup’ they often think of a tech firm, striving to be the next Stripe or Amazon. However, Ireland has a rich and diverse history of food startups, and more producers are emerging every week.
One person who came from this world and wanted to highlight our best food producers by raising their profiles both in Ireland and internationally is Artie Clifford. Eleven years ago, he established Blas na hEireann and the Irish Food Awards were born. In its debut year, there were 400 entries, this year over 2,500 applied to have their products judged. Initial judging takes place in UCC and is a month-long task which brings each category down to the top five in that category to move forward to the finalist round. The finalist judging brings the very best of food and drinks to a panel of 120 judges, judged over two days.
Big buyers
Over the years the event has become one of the year’s top highlights for Irish food producers, buyers and the hospitality industry. In fact, in addition to all the main Irish supermarket groups being present, buyers from Harrods, Selfridges as well as Fortnum & Mason all now attend, to identify the best of Irish producers so they can secure the best of Irish

Slack, a workplace collaboration tool used by millions of people worldwide, is one of the fastest growing tech firms in history. Stephen Conmy met with Cal Henderson, Slack’s co-founder and CTO to discuss how Slack was born and his ambition to end the role of emails in work projects.
If your ambition is to overtake email as the preferred communications ‘weapon of choice’ for teams in the work-place, people tend to listen. Investors tend to listen.
Who doesn’t hate email? Who doesn’t hate office managers who rule by email even more? Email is clumsy, it’s one-way, it can lead to ‘bad boss’ behaviour, it has no collaborative nuances. In essence, it is out-dated and outmoded.
Slack, however, is a collaboration tool that is astoundingly appealing. Since its launch a few years ago it has amassed eight million daily active users. As a tool for large organisations, it also has over 70,000 teams paying to use the service from over 65% of the top 100 Fortune companies. Not bad for a piece of technology that was created out of necessity and then became the world’s most famous accidental business.
In typical tech parlance, Slack describes itself as “a place where teams connect”. In practice, it’s an operating system that connects teams and people with real-time messaging, tools and services.
In this video, co-founder Cal Henderson describes how Slack was ‘born’.

As a business, Slack has big ambitions. Its new ‘Shared Channels’ service allows different companies to work and collaborate with each other. “By 2025, Slack believes that Channels will replace email as the primary way that people communicate and collaborate at work,” is the company’s official line.
The enemies of email wait with bated breath.
A substantial arsenal to expand 
Slack employs close to 800 people in seven different cities worldwide, one of them being Dublin. The firm opened its Dublin