Irish beef is to be sold into the US market for the first time in more than fifteen years, the Department of Agriculture has said.
The US banned imports of European beef following the BSE crisis in the late 1990s. Ireland will become the first EU state to return to the US market since that ban was lifted in March.
“This is the culmination of two years of intensive work to prove our credentials as a supplier of highest quality premium beef,” Minister for Agriculture Simon Coveney
He said regaining access to the market was “a huge prize” given its size and the fact US buyers were paying more for grass-fed beef than anywhere in the world.
Mr Coveney said Ireland had won an advantage as the first EU member to regain access and that he did not expect other European countries to recommence selling into the US in the near future.
The US imported some €4 billion worth of beef (1.2 million tonnes) last year from countries such as Paraguay and Mr Coveney hoped Ireland would sell some €50-€100 million of the meat into the US market in 2015.
Exciting market
Speaking on RTÉ’s Morning Ireland, Mr Coveney said the US market was a far more “exciting” proposition now than at the time when the ban on Irish beef imports was introduced in the late 1990s.
He said the US was paying some 15 per cent less than the EU market at that point but that this had changed as the American beef herd was smaller now than at any point since the 1950s, meaning increased demand. The market for grass fed beef in the US was growing by 20 per cent a year, he added.
The Minister said Ireland had consistently lobbied for a change of position on the ban and that he had raised the
issue with US secretary of state for agriculture Tom Vilsack, citing high international demand for Irish beef as proof of its “quality and reliability”.
The development follows an inspection by US authorities of Irish beef production systems in July of last year, with Mr Coveney saying the news was the culmination of two years of work between his department and its counterparts in the US.