How green is our island?

While many sectors of Ireland Inc want the world to hear the roar of the Celtic Tiger, the food industry would prefer to lull them with the soft sounds of lowing cattle. For growers and producers alike, the image of Ireland as a green and pleasant land has become an important marketing tool.

Witness Kerrygold. To Irish consumers, it may just mean butter. But the brand covers a range of dairy products sold in more than 60 countries with annual sales that exceed 250 million.

"To many consumers, especially in continental Europe, Ireland's green image is very important. We utilise that pure, natural image of Ireland as a food-producing nation as the basis for marketing Kerrygold," says Mr Pat Ward, Kerry gold brand manager with the Irish Dairy Board, the international marketing arm of the dairy industry. "Our logo uses the colour green. It features grass, a cow and daisies. It's very much country and rural imagery."

Building and maintaining a brand is expensive, especially in these days of increased competition. Each year, about £10 million (€12.7 million) is spent to promote the Kerrygold brand, Ward says.

Bord Bia, the Irish food board, also uses a green image to promote Irish food abroad. Ireland the Food Island is an umbrella brand introduced by the food board two years ago. The idea was to create a distinct Irish personality for food and drink products in key markets and to support individual companies promotional efforts.

"The green image is very important as a backdrop for Ireland's food and drink industry and for generic marketing abroad," says Mr John McGrath, marketing director of Bord Bia. "But that image of Ireland as an island surrounded by water providing natural ingredients would be used by different companies in different ways.

"For companies selling private label products into the British retail sector, it would not be a huge selling point. But branded products like Kerrygold would use it as a platform to develop their own values."

But how green are Irish food products in reality? Teagasc, the research, advisory and training service for the agriculture and food industry, is assembling a food purity database based on results from a continuing study on the levels of chemical residues in manufactured food products.

"We can't go on extolling our green image around the world. We have to substantiate it," says Dr Liam Downey, national director of Teagasc. Results to date have been mostly positive although some problem areas have emerged and will need to be addressed, he says.

Consumers are already concerned about the purity and safety of food following a raft of food scares in recent years. The BSE crisis of 1996 originated in Britain but affected beef consumption worldwide, with consumers insisting they would only eat beef produced in their home country, if they ate it at all.

A food scandal in Belgium earlier this year brought down the government and decimated the food industry after dioxin-contaminated animal feed was given to pigs, poultry and cattle. In France, uproar followed the disclosure that human sewage sludge was being used in animal feed manufacture.

The scares have led the EU to announce plans to set up an independent European food agency to win back consumer confidence in food. But they also highlight that food safety has become an economic as well as a health and consumer issue.

"Since BSE, overseas markets are demanding food safety in specifications for food, especially traceability," says Ms Eilis O'Brien, communications director for the Food Safety Authority.

"If there's a problem, they want to be able to trace the meat back to the farm that raised it. Because we export 90 per cent of the beef we produce, we have to be aware of that.

"The value of our food exports is £5 billion. That's an enormous business and of great significance to Ireland Inc."

Closer to home, concerns about the economic impact of salmonella-induced food poisoning prompted egg producers to introduce new safety measures on their farms.

According to Ms O'Brien, this stemmed from an FSA warning to caterers about the use of raw or lightly-cooked eggs in mayonnaise, mousses and other egg-based dishes. In response, many restaurants dropped the dishes from their menus.

"The egg producers were worried about losing business so they put a code of practice in place to show their eggs came from salmonella-free stock. We were then able to revise our advice to consumers and the catering industry," she says.

From a marketing point of view, the food scares have had two effects, says Mr John McGrath of Bord Bia. "One is that the retailer is now seen by the consumer as the person who guarantees the product. Consumers think that if a product lands on the supermarket shelf, it has gone through a checking process by the retailer to ensure safety. The second issue from an Irish perspective is that there is increased interest from trade buyers in the source of food ingredients and Ireland's green image has helped there."

Supermarkets are already beginning to take notice. Superquinn introduced a good husbandry system with some of its beef suppliers in 1989. This not only allowed the retailer to trace where each piece of beef sold in its shops came from, but also covered issues such as how the farm was managed, what the animals were fed and when the vet should be called. The "farm-to-fork" programme, as marketing director Mr Eamonn Quinn describes it, has since been extended to all Superquinn's beef, lamb, poultry, salmon and pork suppliers.

"It's a better way of managing the business and alleviating consumer concerns. You have to have control and identification and the place to start is the farm," he says.

The supermarket is also getting involved with other suppliers, looking to reduce the use of pesticides and additives. "We're getting a lot more involved in what's going into food than we would 10 or 15 years ago. Customers are demanding it."

And, increasingly, customers are equating a green image with organic farming. Ireland has about 800 organic farmers with an estimated 29,000 hectares under organic food production, and the number is growing. But that is not to say the future will be solely organic. A high-tech, biotech agriculture that can produce affordable foods as cheaply as possible will provide the bulk of Europe's food supply in the 21st century, Dr Downey believes. "But for the discerning consumer with discretionary income who eats to be healthy rather than to live, we will have a large organic farming industry."