The Irish Food Board upstaged its rivals in the French sheepmeat market at the weekend by launching a major promotional drive of Irish lamb on the French market weeks ahead of peak consumption time.
France imported €182 million worth of Irish lamb last year, nearly 80 per cent of our production, in the wake of the foot-and-mouth crisis which locked the UK out of the market.
An Bord Bia decided to capitalise on this advantage and promote Irish lamb heavily in the Mediterranean region of France where consumption is highest.
The promotion, in 500 retail outlets, identifies Ireland as the country of origin and involves heavy advertising, posters, and recipe leaflets on pack labels in the run up to St John's eve next month, a traditional time for high lamb consumption.
The major French retailing outlets - Carrefour, Intermarche and Auchanare - are taking part.
According to Mr Guilhem Prince, marketing manager of fresh food at Carrefour, lamb consumption in south-east France is 62 per cent higher than the national average.
He said lamb consumers tended to be in their 60s and had time to cook, not like younger people who found it difficult to make time to cook their own food.
"Younger people tend not to eat lamb and we are trying to encourage them to do so by developing products which will appeal to them," he said.
He praised the Irish food board and the Irish exporters for the care they took with their products and said French importers had come to expect a quality product from Ireland and they were getting that.
Mr Prince said Ireland faced new rivals in the French lamb market, especially from Spain and warned that Ireland would have to be careful about the prices they charged.
He also told journalists that beef consumption in France had not recovered from the latest BSE crisis and was down by 5 per cent. The crisis has had a major impact on Ireland's beef exports to France which showed a decline of €67.3 million to €38.9 million last year.
Buyers, distributors, and wholesalers from across France were hosted to a barbacue at the Saint Cloud racecourse complex on Saturday organised by An Bord Bia.