China now ready to open its doors to Irish beef
Quality and sustainability are key factors attracting Chinese firms, as food buyers from all over world descend on Dublin to meet Irish producers, writes
CHINESE buyers and Irish meat processing companies made key connections at last week’s Bord Bia Marketplace event.
It came ahead of an announcement by Minister for Agriculture Michael Creed yesterday that the Chinese market is due to be open to Irish beef.
Chinese buyers at the event expressed their keen interest in accessing Irish beef. Ray Li, food department manager at Chinalight Food Resources, which is one of the country’s largest foreign trade companies, said the quality and sustainability aspect of Irish beef is attractive for the Chinese consumer and sets us apart from other countries.
“We used to buy beef from South America but we think it’s good that Irish beef has the brand of Origin Green. It’s totally different from South America. I want to do business with all the beef processing companies here,” said Mr Li.
Wai Chen of the Chinese Meat Association added that it’s key that Irish meat processing companies and Chinese buyers form relationships so that Irish processors can get to know the Chinese market demands for beef.
“We organised a large-scale delegation of Chinese beef people. They are very interested in Irish beef so that’s why they are visiting.
“From this trend it’s important to establish relationships between the meat processing companies so they know the market demands and the customer specifications,” he said.
Kieran Byrne of Cavan-based meat processor Liffey Meats said they were focusing on targeting their frozen beef products at the Chinese market.
“There’s a huge proportion of visitors here from China. We’ve had men on the ground in China and we’re reaping the awards. They’re coming back to see us now. We’re no different to any other meat processor. We see China as being a massive market for us,” he said.
Paul Nolan, trade marketing manager at Dawn Meats also told the Farming Inde- pendent that the company was getting excellent feedback not just from Chinese buyers but from other potential global buyers.
“We’re certainly looking at opportunities and part of that is driven from the potential of Brexit, and certainly with the number of nations that are here, you target some — but then surprisingly some countries that you wouldn’t think would have an interest are either looking for meat in general or something very specific like a heat and serve or a pre-cooked beef product and on other occasions it can be an ingredient,” he said.
While China recently placed 25pc tariffs on a number of US products including pork, Mr Chen said since China is 97pc self-sufficient in pork, that Ireland should keep to its beef agenda. Bord Bia’s trade marketing specialist in Shanghai, Conor O’ Sullivan, agreed with Mr Chen.
“We had a look at the amount of pork that America is exporting to China. It’s about 180,000 tonnes and China itself consumes nearly 60m tonnes so the percentage and impact on the mar- IRISH dairy exporter Ornua has appointed its current head of Europe, Middle East Africa and Asia as its new chief executive.
John Jordan will take over the role on June 30 from Kevin Lane, who confirmed he was stepping down from the post last December.
Mr Jordan has been working on long-term strategies to grow Ornua’s sales of key dairy products in the growing marketplace of Asia. His has been working to promote the key brands of Kerrygold and Pilgrims’ Choice, and also to develop private label markets.
Aaron Forde, chair of Ornua, which announced revenues of €2.1bn last year, said the appointment follows a comprehensive selection process headed by a board sub-committee. ket would be very small,” said Mr O’ Sullivan.
More than 550 food buyers from all over the world met 185 Irish food and drink companies at the Marketplace event in the RDS last Thursday.
Salim Chemini of Algerian dairy processing company Tchinlait said that it was impressed by the dairy farms and processors it visited and wants to increase its imports from Ireland.
“It was very interesting. We have visited Dairygold and met Glanbia and Lakeland. It was really interesting to see the economic model of the Irish dairy product. We import 36,000 tonnes of milk powder between skimmed milk powder and protein milk powder. We import all over the world, not a huge quantity from Ireland but are here to meet producers and increase that,” he said.
Meanwhile, over 40 UK buyers attended the event, despite some uncertainty with regard to Brexit. Bord Bia’s London manager Michelle Butler said there is still strong interest in Ireland.
There is the backdrop and concern about Brexit but for our buyers, it’s very much business as usual and there’s an optimism that it will work out They need a close neighbour to source from,” she said.
AS CHINA IS 97PC SELFSUFFICIENT IN PORK, IRELAND SHOULD STICK TO ITS BEEF AGENDA