Declining levels of beef consumption a concern - Bord Bia
THE country’s food promotion board is worried about the growing trend of declining beef consumption in many of our main export markets.
Hopes of growing our beef exports are largely pinned on filling a protein deficit in China, a beef conference organised by Teagasc heard.
Enda Shalvey from Bord Bia’s meat and livestock division said the body is forecasting a further decline in the number of cattle being presented for slaughter in 2020.
In 2018, a record 1.8m cattle were slaughtered; because of the beef protests in 2019 the national kill fell to 1.74m head while the Bord Bia forecast for 2020 is 1.68m to 1.7m.
“The way cattle numbers are in the country, we’re going to be down another between 40,000 and 50,000 head of cattle in 2020,” Shalvey said.
Total beef exports were down nearly 1.5pc in 2019 to 560,000t, Shalvey explained. Despite the UK being our largest export market at 265,000t shipped out of Ireland in 2019, this marked an 11pc decrease on the 2018 figure.
“That 11pc decrease into the UK was down to sluggish consumer demand especially in food service,” Shalvey said.
However, he added the largest “success story” for exports from Ireland in 2019 was the growth in the international markets mainly in Asia.
“In 2019, we exported 20,000t into the Philippines. We’ve gone from 2018 where we exported 1,200t to
China to 12,000t… so, hopefully we’re going to see a continuation of the increase of our exports into China.”
He added that the spread of African Swine Fever in the China pig herd has “decimated their protein supplies”. Bord Bia is forecasting that China will remain in a protein deficit for between five and seven years and will be forced to import more proteins.
A major concern for Bord Bia is a growing veganism trend, plus consumers across Europe reducing beef consumption as a way of satisfying climate and animal rights concerns.
“Unfortunately, we’ve seen a slight decline in 2019 of about 0.9pc (in consumption),” Shalvey said, adding that the vegan-only diet in Europe stands at “only 1pc or 2pc” of the population.
“Research in the Netherlands and Germany that would be a slight worry for us is that consumers appear to be making a conscious effort to cut back on the beef they would be consuming,” he said.
“That’s not a case of it happening in one country, it appears to be across the board (in Europe). People are making a conscious effort to cut back on their beef consumption.”