Supply-Chain Brand — Cláirseach Dairy's Verified Sustainability Promise

A four-round, advanced agri-food sustainability-marketing simulation set inside Cláirseach Dairy Group, an Irish farmer-owned co-operative turning over €1.1B from 2,400 supplier farms, 68% exported as high-value nutritional dairy ingredients. Cláirseach's single largest customer, Nordmilk Nutrition (€242M, 22% of revenue), has issued an ultimatum: from FY2028 it will buy only from suppliers with independently verified, farm-level sustainability certification aligned to Origin Green. The co-op has 24 months, ~960 farms (40%) still unverified, and a once-off €9M board-approved budget against ~€14M of asks. Playing the marketing director, you (1) diagnose the brand–supply-chain gap and size the €242M at risk, choosing the one claim Cláirseach can defend today; (2) commit the supply chain — set a verification target, sequence the farms that supply Nordmilk volume first, and decide the co-op/farmer/shared funding split before any brand promise; (3) build the national brand programme — choosing architecture (B2B ingredient brand, consumer endorsement, or both), the proof/measurement system that turns farm audits into auditable claims, and evidence-based positioning that beats NZ and Dutch rivals; and (4) allocate the €9M across verification, B2B trade marketing, consumer pull, and proof infrastructure, then model ROI under low/base/high premium-and-demand scenarios and defend the plan to the board and the Nordmilk buyer. The math embodies McLoughlin's thesis — the brand is a verified promise about the supply chain, never a layer on top of it. It rewards verification-first sequencing, the B2B ingredient-brand logic, evidence-based differentiation, funded proof infrastructure, and scenario discipline; it punishes the five classic errors — brand before proof (greenwashing), unsequenced 100% verification, generic 'sustainable dairy' positioning, consumer-only myopia that ignores Nordmilk, and single-scenario optimism. Final KPIs track Verified Supply %, Brand Credibility, Buyer Confidence and a scenario-weighted Margin/ROI projection against the €9M cap.