Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine Simon Coveney has had a hectic week promoting his ambitions for Irish beef. Noting that the USA is the biggest, highest-value beef market in the world, he stressed that Ireland has all the credentials to supply the demanding top end of that market.

Minister Coveney told the Irish Farmers Journal that his expectations were exceeded in the feedback he was receiving at the engagements with target.

He explained that the events of this week in New York, Washington and Boston were the culmination of two years’ work to get approval by US authorities for Irish beef to be the first from the EU to re-enter the US market since the BSE ban.

Parallel to government working to obtain approval has been Bord Bia’s work on the ground to identify the market opportunities.

ABP-Sysco link up

The big commercial news on Monday was ABP and Sysco announcing their plans to bring Irish beef to the top end of the Manhattan restaurant sector. The market will be a good indicator of the success of the Bord Bia market entry plan which kicks in following the launches this week.

Nobody can accurately predict just how much sales will be in the first year, with the €15m figure given as an indication. Given the positivity and dynamic marketing campaign, it is hoped that this target will be easily achieved.

Bord Bia CEO Aidan Cotter accepted that while the real work starts now to develop this market, the reality is that it is growing at 25-30% per annum, which is good news for an industry trying to get its product into that market.

Speaking to the Irish Farmers Journal, Paul Finnerty, CEO of ABP, introduced a note of caution to the upbeat assessments.

Finnerty explained that just as the Irish industry at times takes an over-negative perspective, we also have to be careful not to get overexcited and think of this as the solution to all of the industry issues.

This week marked an important milestone in getting Irish beef access to the top value markets in the world. The Minister has done his part and Bord Bia has identified potential.

It is the ability to translate this potential into real sales and create alternative market opportunities and competition for our beef that can help farmgate prices.

The process for manufacturing beef is not yet complete, although the Minister is keen to stress that that isn’t an indication of difficulties.

Rather, it reflects the fact that high-value cuts were the first priority and only procedural issues, that are being worked through, remain on the way to have manufacturing beef approved as well.

This is where big volumes of sales are possible and with current prices driven by reduced US kill, is where the opportunity exists to make a meaningful return to the farmgate price.