Students from St. Mary’s Secondary School in Charleville scoop top prize at
Cork North & West Schools Enterprise Competition
The competition is part of the National Student Enterprise Awards, in which over 17,000 students from all over Ireland take part each year. The girls from St. Mary’s Secondary School will now go on to represent North & West Cork at the National Final of the Student Enterprise Awards which take place in Croke Park on 3rd May 2017.
The girls have worked very hard on their business over the past 6 months, taking their product right from idea stage through to production, sales and marketing as part of running their student enterprise over the academic year.
'Grass Girls' is a young enterprise company made up of four entrepreneurs: Rachel Lynch, Niamh Kavanagh, Jenniffer Maloney and
Katie Quirke.
Grass Girls came up with a very novel and innovative idea of ‘Gender Tags’ for calves. These transparent stickers for calf cattle tags make it easy for farmers to identify male and female calves at first glance. These high quality gender tags will be used on newly born calves to distinguish the gender of the animal. High quality transparent stickers will be placed over the number on the tag—thus pink transparent for a heifer and blue for a bull.
Their very unique and worthwhile idea won them great acclaim in the North Cork Enterprise Regional finals where they competed against over 60 companies and were awarded ‘Best Overall Senior company’ in Mallow on 14th March 2017.
The girls are also supported greatly by Cormac tagging. Cormac tagging are one of only two agents in the country who are involved in tagging. The Grass Girls products are promoted on their website for their ‘true usefulness’ and high quality.
Other farming associations such as ICSA (Irish Cattle and Sheep Association) are also very excited about Grass girls ‘gender tags’.
Gender tags can be bought through:
Cormac tagging, Tuam, Co Galway, Grass Girls facebook page and in local co-op and vets.
Speaking at the event, Head of Local Enterprise at the North Cork Local Enterprise Office, Kevin Curran, thanked the teachers for the support they provide to their students and said "We are seeking the next generation of entrepreneurs and the standard on display here today is very impressive. Congratulations to both finalists. We look forward to seeing you again as clients of the LEO in the years to come."
