Strong beef marketing by the Irish

Beef exports to France are to be increased significantly

The Irish have increased their marketing of beef in France. The aim is to achieve an annual export volume of 50.000 tonnes in the medium term, which corresponds to the magnitude of Irish beef sales to France before the BSE crisis. As reported by the German Farmers' Association (DBV), 24.000 tons of beef were sold last year, and at least 30.000 tons are expected for the current year. To achieve this, the Irish launched an 'awareness campaign' aimed at food retailers in autumn 2003, including gifts to the managers of 1.400 French supermarkets and hypermarkets and competitions with prizes in the form of whiskey and weekend breaks in Ireland. In addition to this, test sales with surveys were carried out in seven hypermarkets from November 2003 to April 2004. In terms of quality and safety, the goods are largely classified “like local meat”, but according to a number of customers they offer a “more favorable price/quality ratio”.

The surveys carried out as part of the test sales also revealed that the effect of the "race concept" strongly emphasized in French meat marketing is obviously overestimated: 21 percent of meat buyers are indifferent to the breed of cattle, and 28 percent of them are unable to spontaneously identify the breed to name from which a piece of meat selected by them came. However, French consumers are much better informed about the origin and know 90 percent of the country of origin of the goods they buy. According to various surveys, between 12 and 25 percent of the beef customers surveyed had reservations about beef from abroad. The expiry date, external impression, price and the type of part turned out to be the ultimate purchase criteria.

Source: Bonn [dbv]