Ireland - Bord Bia

European Beef – Excellence in Food Safety and Sustainability

Key facts

• Launched in: February 2017
• Headquarters: Bord Bia Dublin & Shanghai

Company profile

Bord Bia, The Irish Food Board won the contract to promote EU beef, a project that is 80% co-financed by the EU. Between 2017 and 2019 Bord Bia will attend 3 international trade shows (FoodEx), hold 6 trade/technical seminars and run promotional campaigns on Facebook and Instagram in Japan. The campaign seeks to highlight Europe’s high standards of food safety, quality and sustainability in Japan.

Japan is just 40% self-sufficient in beef. In 2016, beef imports totalled 504,000 tonnes, along with 106,000 tonnes of beef offal.

How the trade agreement helped:

Opening up Japan's market

In the first year of implementation tariffs on beef have been lowered from 38.5% to 27.5%. The rate will gradually reduce to 9% over the period of the agreement.

That means Irish beef products can be sold at competitive prices.

Winning the right to drive this EU campaign is recognition of Ireland as an exporting country with a strong history of promoting and supplying quality beef and lamb that is sustainably produced. This contract allows us to expand our activities at a time when diversification into international markets was never more important... this campaign affords us the opportunity to deploy each of these to the benefit of Irish and EU producers.

Tara McCarthy,
CEA, Bord Bia