What is your role within Bord Bia?

I’m based in Singapore as Southeast Asia market director for Bord Bia and am looking after eight markets in the region.

Some of these are real giants in terms of the size of their economies and populations such as Japan, Korea and Singapore but also the fast emerging markets of Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam.

Is demand for meat growing in these regions?

Looking at this region as a whole the demand for meat is growing across the entire species range.

Meat imports for beef meat, pigmeat and sheep meat are all on the rise into these markets as consumer demand grows.

For the Irish meat industry, these are markets where Irish companies will be doing a lot more business in the years ahead.

Are Irish meat companies doing business in all of these markets?

A lot of the markets where we can do business is defined by where Ireland has market access.

Where we don’t have access, Bord Bia is working closely with the Department of Agriculture to advance market access for Irish food exports.

Where we can do business already Bord Bia has established a market prioritisation programme to look at where the big market opportunities are for Irish meat.

Do you believe Irish meat companies will start to have a very significant presence in Asian markets in the years ahead?

Absolutely. We already have a significant presence in many of these markets.

If you take the likes of Japan, it’s a huge market for Irish pigmeat for years and has been growing for the Irish beef trade in more recent years.

To date, the beef from Ireland going to the Japanese market has mostly been for offal and tongue cuts.

Those cuts are a speciality or a delicacy in those markets.

How will the EU-Japan trade deal impact?

The EU-Japan economic partnership is due to be ratified and we will start to see Japanese tariffs on products such as beef and pork exports from Europe coming down very soon.

So that will open up even more opportunities for Ireland in the near future.

Markets such as South Korea, Vietnam and Indonesia are real powerhouses in that part of the world.

Ireland has been doing some business in these markets but can we do more?

Absolutely. But the first thing we need to do is understand the consumer better in these markets.

We work very hard in Bord Bia to identify the market insights in these countries and highlight the opportunities for Irish farmers and the meat industry.

Then the key next step is building up awareness of Ireland and Irish food on the ground in these markets.

So we take a market by market approach to identify what’s most effective.