A six-week long marketing campaign to promote Irish lamb in France was launched at the weekend by Bord Bia in what is Ireland's most important outlet for sheepmeat.
The French take 80 per cent of Irish sheep meat exports and last year imported 33,000 tonnes worth €120 million.
The board has identified this time of the year as the time when the French, who are not self sufficient in lamb, can buy Irish lamb at its optimum quality,
According to Mr Jim O'Toole, Bord Bia's chief in Paris, told more than 200 guests who attended at the Centre National de Rugby in Paris, that this year, the promotion would be concentrated on the Paris and the North and East regions. These areas are the ones which have been identified by French retailers as providing the best opportunity to recover consumption, while they are also the areas where French consumers are most familiar with Irish lamb. He said more than 950 stores or 64 per cent and 30 per cent respectively of all hyper and supermarkets in the Paris and the North and East regions will be supplied with promotional material.
Promotional material including posters, recipe leaflets and on-pack labels will be distributed to the participating stores, while a series of in-store tastings of Irish lamb will take place in 106 retail outlets throughout the six week period of the promotion.
He said the top French retailers, Carrefour, Inter-marche, Auchan, Casion, Cora and Match would be taking part in the promotion which will cost in the region of €350,000.
Mr O'Toole said research carried out by An Bord Bia after the Irish promotion last year, had found a large increase in the number of buyers of Irish lamb.
He said research had shown that the number of French people who had purchased Irish lamb in the region had risen to 51 per cent of those surveyed compared to 29 per cent in 2001 and only 15 per cent in the year 2000.
The official launch was performed by the Minister of State at the Department of Agriculture and Food, Mr Noel Treacy, who complemented Bord Bia for its identification of a niche market for Irish sheepmeat in the highly competitive French marketplace.
He told the 200 food buyers and Irish exporters who attended the event which has become firmly established as an important business and social gathering, that Ireland expected to increase its overall production of sheepmeat by 4 per cent this year.
Already this year, he said, the processing level at Irish meat export plants was running at 58 per cent more than in the same period last year. Most of the buyers from the top French supermarkets and importers to the Rungis meat market in Paris, attended Saturdays event.
The timing of the promotion was particularly good for one group of Irish lamb producers and exporters from Co Laois, who on Thursday announced a new marketing label for Laois producers called "Glenbarrow Farms".The lamb producers are independently quality asssured by Teagasc, the agriculture and food development authority, adhering to the Bord Bia Lamb Quality Assurance Scheme.
Irish Country Meats in Camolin, which invested heavily in the most up to date technology for lamb meat processing, is the processing partner to the scheme.