France has the best potential to absorb Irish beef which is about to become displaced from the British market when BSE restrictions are lifted there, it was learned yesterday.
Bord Bia's European Beef Forum heard on Tuesday that €200 million worth of Irish beef currently exported to Britain is likely to be displaced when British beef aged over 30 months is allowed back into the foodchain, probably in April 2005.
Mr Aidan Cotter, Bord Bia's director of operations said yesterday that the Irish industry then faced the challenge of placing over 75,000 tonnes of beef, preferably in the rest of Europe where the best returns would be available.
"France would appear to have the greatest potential to absorb Irish beef as at its peak that market took 75,000 tonnes of Irish beef before the BSE crisis," said Mr Cotter.
"The industry and the board has already targeted other European countries such as Italy, the Netherlands, Spain and the Scandinavian countries as possible outlets," he said.
Mr Cotter said that Ireland, now the largest beef exporter in the Northern Hemisphere, shipped out 500,000 tonnes of beef annually. Our beef exports were currently valued at €1.3 billion.
"There is a deficit of one million tonnes in the European Union, and and we are best placed to benefit from this if we supply product which the consumer needs," he said.
He said the deficit on the European market, which takes 85 per cent of Irish exports, had been caused by French and German and some Dutch producers quitting the market because they could not get the returns they wanted.
He outlined the major consumption changes that had taken place since 1980 when the average consumption of beef in Europe stood at 26kg per person.
"By 1995, that figure had fallen to 20kg per person because of the problems with Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy," he said.
"Had that decline continued we would have expected beef consumption to be as low as 17 kg per person this year, but there has been a major recovery and the average consumption level now stands at 20kg per capita," he said.