The work undertaken by Bord Bia, and facilitated by the beef factories, gave last week’s Beef Forum an insight to where Irish beef ends up.

The study undertaken by Bord Bia focused on factory sales during 2013 and 2014, which identified the destination of sales, the type of markets supplied and what type of beef went into particular markets. The IFA has provided the Irish Farmers Journal with a detailed breakdown, as presented at the Forum.

For the analysis, the beef carcase was broken down into four basic component parts: steak cuts, round (roasting) cuts, forequarter and trim and carcase.

The geographical market for Irish beef was identified on this basis and, finally, the market channel within that geographical market. These were classified under: retail (supermarkets), wholesale or food service and manufacturing (eg burgers or pies).

The study was based on volume of sales – values were excluded. The numbers relating to the destination of sales were as expected, although despite the high profile work to open global markets, the figure of 6% of sales is a reminder of the scale of the job that has to be done.

It will be interesting to see the updated data for 2015 when the US is included for the first time. Elsewhere there are no major surprises, with perhaps the EU retail sector figure at 43% being higher than expected.

Commenting on the information, IFA Livestock chair Henry Burns described it as useful, but only a start in the process of bringing real transparency to the beef industry.

Click here if you cannot see the infographic