EBLEX has worked with the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs and other industry bodies to push through generic export licences that will allow UK producers to access nine new markets, most of them in central and western Africa.
Peter Hardwick, head of trade development, EBLEX, told FoodManufacture.co.uk that EBLEX was spending £100,000 on the initiative, which stemmed in part from current economic hardships besetting UK beef farmers and processors.
The Anglia Farmers Agricultural Index showed raw ingredient costs for farmers had risen 5.27% in the year to August 2010 (with food prices rising at just 3%), with higher prices for grain and bedding fuel a particular problem.
Supply chain initiatives
Higher beef production costs led National Farmers Union (NFU) chairmen in England, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales to warn in late August that without “positive supply chain initiatives” – better prices paid to producers by retailers – many farmers would be unable to produce beef this winter.
Hardwick said he hoped the new markets would help:“We hope that this will lift UK beef prices and put pressure on the market to compete for produce: for sheep 33.7% of our stock has been exported so far this year, while beef exports only stand at 10%.
“We’d like to think it could be 15-20% again, even 25% as in the heyday before industry problems with BSE, although the last figure is unlikely.
“Western or central African markets such as Cameroon, the Ivory Coast, Congo are only the tip of the iceberg, but it is important to put effort into accessing new markets, rather than get bogged down in bureaucracy and lose opportunities."
Date-based export restrictions
Hardwick said that the industry was only just starting to recover from the end of the date-based export scheme that banned UK beef exports. The scheme, which was scrapped in May 2006, only allowed exports of boneless British beef products from animals aged six to 30 months.
In August 2007 EU restrictions and World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) restrictions were also lifted, meaning that 2009 was the first year for uninterrupted exports of beef at 90,000t.
To put this figure into context, Hardwick said that the UK exported around 250,000t of processed beef a year, until BSE hit in March 1996 and all exports to the EU were banned.
Said Hardwick:“We’re still a long way off past volumes but have found increasing interest amongst traders in our exports from non-EU markets.
“This is also due to the relative weakness of sterling against the dollar and the euro, which makes our products all the more competitive.
“Our announcement has already sent out a positive signal – The Philippines lifted a ban on British beef as a result of it – although naturally we can’t export there yet without appropriate licences."
Processors have deskilled
Nonetheless, Hardwick said that UK firms still needed to work hard to capitalise upon the new export possibilities: “It’s not an opportunity that our companies are used to having available. Firms have de-skilled in terms of market needs.
“Processors also need to learn about processing ‘worthless’ parts for growth sectors, such as beef heals, flanks, fifth-quarter parts, which have low UK structural demand."
Another beef industry source said that the new licences were welcome, given that the NFU’s call for positive supply chain initiatives was likely to go unheeded: “The supermarkets have more opportunity than they think to pay farmers and processors better prices, especially in regard to mince.
“Naturally this won’t happen, because they’re terrified of upsetting consumers with higher prices, so the export licence route is a worthwhile alternative.”