Three months on from Minister for Agriculture SCoveney’s launch of Irish beef in the US, the industry is still waiting to get its hands on the big prize, major access to the manufacturing beef market.

We were assured at the time and since that there were no problems and only a few procedural issues had to be finalised before shipments of manufacturing beef would join the high value steak cuts.

Access to the steak market alone isn’t that big a deal. The US is a huge net exporter of the higher value steak cuts and it is only at the very top end of the market for grass fed steak that there is some opportunity. Of course, the fact that a company and country has received USDA approval is worth something on the CV for approaching global markets.

So how are the “procedural” issues proceeding? The issue with supplying manufacturing beef to the US is around being able to meet US requirements on being free of E-coli. The US industry procedure for dealing with E-coli is to wash the carcase and in some cases cuts of beef with lactic acid. The EU accepted the use of lactic acid in 2013 but EU customer resistance to its use has meant that the industry has not gone down this road. The pros and cons of the US and EU position are not dissimilar to the hormone debate, the US follows a strict scientific interpretation while the EU incorporates public perception.

The Irish way for dealing with E-coli if prevention rather than treatment. The issue of presenting clean cattle at the factory is key to this. If cattle go on to the fail in the factory dirty, the process of removing the hide without contaminating the carcase is impossible no matter how skilled and careful the slaughter man is.

For Ireland to supply the US with manufacturing beef, it will be necessary to demonstrate that there is no E-coli issue. There are a series of tests that are used to demonstrate this and the Irish Farmers Journal understands that a lab is in the advanced stages of being approved to carry out these tests. It is also understood that Dawn, Kepak, Slaney and ABP Cahir will join the already approved ABP Clones and Foyle Donegal factories shortly.

With this and manufacturing approval, we can expect the US trade to finally start contributing to the Irish beef industry. It will, however, come at along with a renewed focus on the presentation of clean cattle for slaughter. In the Irish production environment with slats and even weekends of rain like we have just had, this is notoriously difficult to achieve. We have had a good history with managing the issue with our present customers.

However, moving into the US where their solution is to hit the problem with lactic acid we have to be ultra-cautious to make sure we deliver the same result our way using prevention rather than treatment. An E-coli product recall would be a disaster in any market but simply couldn’t be contemplated in the US.