August 8, 2013

 

 

Despite beef imports have almost halved in the wake of the horsemeat crisis last spring, Irelandstill imported over 6,000 tonnes of beef valued at €26 million (US$35 million) during a three month period in 2013.

 

Britain is the main source of our imported beef. The imports are mainly cull cow beef carcasses, many of which come in through Northern Ireland to then be incorporated into the South's large burger processing industry.

 

Central Statistical Office (CSO) data shows that British imports were back by 42% for three quarters of our total imports during March, April and May this year. The other countries that have seen an average decrease of close to 80% are Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Holland, Spain and Poland.

 

Remarkably, Irish meat processors and traders continued to import almost €250,000 (US$334,000) of beef from Poland during the 13-week period covered by the data. This is despite Poland being implicated as the source for meat containing up to 80% horsemeat last January.

 

The category that has seen the biggest fall is the frozen edible beef offal segment, which fell by over 70% over the course of the last year. Prepared edible offal also fell by almost 60%, while frozen carcasses also fell by over 50%.

 

These were the main import ingredients for our burger processing industry, often referred to as visible lean or 'VLs' in the trade.

 

In March 2012, Ireland imported over 1,000 tonnes of prepared bovine offal from Britain. This amount fell to just 177 tonnes in March this year. In May 2012, imports of this category from Poland totalled 63 tonnes, but this had dropped to 22 tonnes by May 2013.

 

The total value of imports during the two periods fell by a smaller amount than the volumes involved, indicating that meat traders here are focusing more on imports of higher value cuts.

 

ICSA beef chairman Edmond Phelan said that the drop in beef import figures should not lead to a sense of complacency in the industry. "The fact that there are still beef imports from 18 different countries including Brazil, Uruguay and Poland suggests the need for on-going vigilance by the regulatory authorities," Phelan said.

 

"Perhaps some of the drop in imports can be explained by the possibility that retail customers are a little bit more careful of what they are selling in the light of the horsemeat revelations," he added.

 

While the import levels from most of these countries are quite low, farmers here continue to ask why Ireland- which exports 85-90% of its beef- needs to import any beef at all.