As Irish food companies converged in Cologne yesterday to participate in the largest food fair in the world, Anuga, the beef industry received a boost with the announcement that the trade with Egypt has resumed, writes Seán MacConnell in Germany
Worth over €200 million at its peak, the Egyptians stopped taking Irish beef in 2000 because of fears over BSE.
While the market has been technically open for some time little or no product has been sent there until this week when preparations are completed for a shipment of 700 tonnes, the equivalent of 2,100 cattle.
Minister for Agriculture Mary Coughlan welcomed the resumption of beef exports to Egypt and said she was particularly pleased that it coincided with the critical peak autumn period for beef producers and processors.
She said factory production to complete one signed contract had already started and that experts from the Egyptian veterinary inspection services are already in Ireland supervising this production.
Over the past two weeks export licences for Egypt amounting to 1,100 tonnes of beef had been taken out with her Department, she added.
"The resumption of the shipping of Irish beef to Egypt is a very welcome and hard-won breakthrough. It once again underlines the international reputation of Irish beef as a quality product," she said.
The Minister said she would be meeting Egyptian foreign minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit next Tuesday during his visit to Ireland to discuss the beef trade.
The news was welcomed in Germany, where all the Irish meat companies have gathered as part of Bord Bia's three-year, €10 million beef promotion drive to secure markets for Irish beef.
The pan-European Irish beef campaign includes promotions in over 8,000 stores across ten countries. Forty supermarket groups are participating.