Irish meat processors are benefiting from the shortage of beef, lamb and pigmeat on British supermarket shelves since the outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease there.
Mr Michael Duffy, chief executive of Bord Bia, said slaughterings of cattle for the commercial market have increased over the numbers sent for destruction in the past two weeks. "There are supply gaps and because of the long supplier-retailer relationship, if the British product isn't available, British retailers would look to Ireland in the first instance."
The Republic exports 110,000 tonnes of beef to Britain each year, accounting for 12.2 per cent of sales. Slaughterings for the week ended February 19th show that, while 20,000 cattle were sent for the destruction scheme, some 14,300 animals aged under 30 months were killed for the commercial market. The figure for the previous week was 12,400 cattle under 30 months. Figures for last week will be available today.
Mr Duffy said that around 80 per cent of Irish lamb was exported to France, but some Irish companies were selling to Britain. Pig slaughterings also were showing an increase, he said.
Mr John Smith, chief executive of the Irish Meat Association, said that although factories had to close yesterday in advance of the new certification system for the movement of animals from farm to factory for slaughter, they would be killing normally from today.
Meanwhile, the director of Pirbright Laboratories, the world reference laboratory for foot-and-mouth disease, said moist cool weather conditions would favour the survival of the virus.
The director of the laboratories, Prof Chris Bostock, said the sero-type of the disease in Britain was quite virulent, especially in pigs. He said animal-to-animal contact seemed the main source of infection. "It would certainly look as though the vast majority of outbreaks that have been confirmed appear to have some link through the movement of animals, vehicles or humans. So, there is not a large number of unexplained outbreaks."
Asked if the closure of small abattoirs in Britain had exacerbated the problem, he replied: "There are a number of factors which have led to high rates of movement of animals. The closure of abattoirs, the specialisation of abattoirs, is one of those factors. If you have to move your animals half-way across the country, that leads to the increased possibility for farm-to-farm, animal-to-animal contact. It's clearly one of the factors. I don't know enough of the details of animal movements."