Moy Park’s Ursula Lavery has been awarded an MBE

Ursula Lavery, technical and R&D director Europe at leading food company Moy Park, has been awarded an MBE in His Majesty the King’s New Year’s honours list for services to the Agri-Food Industry and to the Economy Northern Ireland.

Professor Ursula Lavery MBE, said: “I am absolutely delighted and very humbled to receive this honour.

"I am proud to be part of the Northern Ireland agrifood industry, and this award is testament to the talented people I work with and everything we are doing to drive food integrity, animal welfare and provide a sustainable supply chain for our farmers and customers.”

Congratulating Ursula, Chris Kirke, president of Moy Park, explained: “Ursula is committed to achieving excellence across the supply chain, from farm to fork. She is a dedicated researcher, director and leader in our industry and on behalf of Moy Park we offer her our congratulations.”

Ursula joined Moy Park in 1987 as a marketing executive having graduated with a BSc (Hons) in Food Science from Queen's University, Belfast.

She moved into technical and quality management the following year and since then has steadily help build Moy Park's reputation as a leading food company with absolute commitment to animal health, food safety and quality.

Appointed to the executive board as technical director Europe in 2013, Ursula is responsible for an integrated Europe-wide technical organisation.

Recognised as a leading authority on food safety and poultry research, Ursula sits on several advisory bodies including IGD Technical Leadership Forum, Chilled Food Association (CFA), Food Industry Initiative on Antimicrobials (FIIA) where she is a founding member and serves on the Food Industry Liaison Group of the Food Standards Agency NI.

Ursula has previously sat on the Food Standards Agency (FSA) Acting on Campylobacter Together (ACT). She is a board member and vice chairperson of the Northern Ireland Food and Drink Association (NIFDA), both the Industrial Advisory Board of the Institute for Global Food Security (IGFS) and the AgriFood Quest Competence Centre at Queen's University Belfast and is a non-executive director of both the Centre for Innovation Excellence in Livestock (CIEL) and GS1 UK, which seeks to apply international standards via barcodes to consumer goods, healthcare products and more.

Over the years, Ursula's impact beyond Moy Park has been recognised with a series of industry awards including a NIFDA Award for Outstanding Leadership during Covid-19, ‘International Director of the Year’ from the NI Institute of Directors in 2021 and a Women in Business leadership award in 2016.

In 2022 Ursula was appointed honorary 'Professor of Practice' at the IGFS and School of Biological Sciences at Queen's University Belfast.

Ursula is community spirited and amongst various charitable and community activities has volunteered in the Big Beehive Build in Tanzania with the charity Farm Africa. It was an experience that will last a lifetime and has brought attention to the importance of biodiversity and sustainable business.

Other business recipients in the latest list include an OBE for Brian Baird, a former Invest NI board member, for services to economic development in Northern Ireland.

Among those receiving MBEs are Dr Godfrey Gaston from Ballymena, lately director at the Centre for Secure Information Technologies, for services to cyber security innovation and Peter McBride for services to the economy and the community in Co Tyrone.