Exports of beef continue to grow

Fresh and frozen beef exports from the UK in July 2010 were up 31 per cent to 8,000 tonnes compared to the same month in 2009.

In the year to date, fresh and frozen beef exports, at 56,000 tonnes, continue to be well above 2009 levels.

The Netherlands was the destination for a third of this beef, with Ireland and France also proving to be increasingly strong markets.

In non-European Union countries, exports of beef are up by more than 35 per cent, to 1,816 tonnes.

The new figures, which have been published in the English Beef and Lamb Executive market intelligence report, are said to be partially a result of UK production increasing by 10 per cent in the first seven months of this year.

The good news is set to continue, with the upward trend in exports expected to continue when August and September figures are revealed, reflecting the recent doubling of the number of export markets available to beef producers.

Peter Hardwick, head of trade development for EBLEX, said: "The continuing rise in beef exports is encouraging though we are still a long way short of levels previously enjoyed in the early 1990s.

"There is a lot more work still to be done in identifying potential new markets for the right products and expanding current markets.

"However it is good news and shows the demand there is out there for quality beef while giving producers in England more markets to target to get the best possible price."

Improving export opportunities has been a goal of EBLEX in recent months, with a total of nine additional non-EU export markets now available, most of them in Africa.

The picture was more mixed for the lamb sector with exports expected to continue to rise as a percentage of production but not in absolute terms due to availability of product.

Meanwhile the domestic consumption of beef continues to remain a contentious issue with the National Beef Association launching an attack on supermarkets over the prices at which they sell beef.

Its chairman, Oisin Murnion, said: "If home-produced beef continues to be undersold because it is used as a price lure by continuously-warring multiples, the losers will ultimately be consumers themselves because the cattle which supply the product, will steadily disappear from the countryside which will quickly look ragged and unkempt as a result.

"If our beef breeding herds were not grazing the hills and uplands, or the low-lying land behind our cities, life would be much more difficult for the sensitive species because they would have to fight for survival amongst thickets of unsightly thorn and scrub."

He said that the public was being "lured into buying cheap beef because the supermarkets use it as a weapon in their price wars".

"However none of the multiples are telling their customers that the real long-term outcome of selling underpriced beef will be degraded and unsightly fields and hillsides that none of the public will find this welcoming or attractive," he said.