When do you decide what markets to visit in a year?

At the start of every year we will have a meeting with the Department of Agriculture to discuss potential destinations.

From our end that would be informed from conversations with the food and drink industry to see which markets are most relevant for them. We will also have suggestions based on consumer insight and market research we have carried out in Bord Bia.

We then need to see when the Minister for Agriculture might be available to travel and how many trade missions you can fit in over the course of the calendar year.

How do you decide what to include in a trade mission?

Really what you’re doing is listening to the companies that are participating in the trade mission in terms of what they want.

You’re also engaging with the local people you plan to meet to gauge what they want. Often times you’re going into markets with different cultures and there are different expectations of what you’ll do and how you’ll do it.

How many trade missions have there been in 2017?

This trade mission to Japan and South Korea will be our third this year. In February and March we were in the Gulf, visiting United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia.

And then we were in the US and Mexico in June. Typically you would be looking at three or four trade missions a year.

What type of agri-food businesses are travelling to Japan and Korea?

As things stand we have 10 meat companies travelling with us. On the dairy side we have nine companies as well as three prepared consumer food companies.

It also looks like we will have one or two seafood companies travelling.

What is the attraction of these markets?

They are markets that are not self-sufficient in food. On the dairy side, if you take a product like cheese, Japan and South Korea are only 15% to 20% self-sufficient.

Korea imports about 120,000t of cheese and Japan imports about 300,000t.

Not all of that is cheddar cheese but there is a cheddar type market in both countries.

Is there room for Ireland to export food to these markets?

There is Irish food exported to Korea and Japan. But in the context of import markets that are in the billions, Ireland’s share of imports is quite low.

At the moment the majority of food imports in terms of meat and dairy for both markets is supplied by Australia, New Zealand and the US.

For us, this is a chance to figure out if there is an opportunity for Ireland in these countries, especially given the backdrop of Brexit.