Ireland looks to sell dairy, meat in Mideast

No other country is feeling the pressure from the UK’s vote to leave the European Union more than Ireland

Ireland’s $21 billion (Dh77 billion) food and beverage industry is turning to the Middle East for sales as the UK, its biggest buyer, prepares to move ahead with Brexit and leave the European Union.

The UK accounts for 43 per cent of Ireland’s agriculture exports, buying about €1 billion ($1.1 billion) each of beef and dairy products a year, Agriculture Minister Michael Creed said Wednesday in an interview in Dubai. Ireland’s biggest markets in the Middle East are Saudi Arabia, at about €135 million a year, and the UAE, at about €60 million, with cheese and other dairy products leading sales in both, he said.

Ireland reached an agreement this week to sell processed, cooked, minced and bone-in beef to Saudi Arabia, Creed said.

No other country is feeling the pressure from the UK’s vote to leave the trading bloc more than Ireland. The UK is the top destination for the country’s exports including Diageo PLC’s Guinness beer and the Ornua farm cooperative’s Kerrygold butter made from the milk of grass-fed cows. Thirty years of EU quotas that limited milk production ended in 2015, leaving 18,000 Irish dairy farmers to look for new export markets to take in their growing output.

“Trade wars don’t suit us,” Creed said. “Trade missions in the context of Brexit take on an added imperative.”

Ireland wants to boost its agriculture exports to €19 billion by 2025 from €11 billion in 2016, he said. The Middle East, North Africa and Southeast Asia are attractive because of a growing middle class, Westernised diets and increased consumer spending, he said. China is now Ireland’s second-biggest market for dairy and pork exports, after the UK. - Bloomberg