How big an opportunity is China for Irish beef?

China is a fantastic opportunity for team Ireland and the Irish beef industry. It’s the culmination of seven years of hard work by two ministers for agriculture, the Department of Agriculture, the market access teams, Bord Bia, the Irish diplomats here and obviously ourselves in ABP. We’re pretty excited about this market.

What customers has ABP lined up in China?

We’ve managed to land a contract to supply Wowprime, which is a publicly listed restaurant chain operating in Taiwan and China. Wowprime has more than 400 restaurants, with about 150 of those located in China. We will be aiming to supply 100 of those Chinese restaurants that trade under Wowprime’s top-tier brands of Tasty and Wangsteak.

Listen to “ABP's Mark Goodman on exports to China” on Spreaker.

Does ABP have a team on the ground in China?

We’ve had boots on the ground here in Shanghai since 2011 carrying out market research and lining up customers.

How big could the Chinese market be for Irish beef?

I think you only have to look at the statistics here. You’ve got 1.4bn people in China who are only consuming 4kg of beef per capita per year. Back in Ireland, beef consumption is 15kg per capita per year. If Chinese beef consumption rises by just 1kg per capita that would equate to more than three times Ireland’s entire beef exports for a year. The other thing is that China is an excellent hedge against the downside risk of things such as Brexit and Mercosur.

Can Ireland compete with the South American beef exporters that already supply China?

Absolutely we can compete. The South Americans have a cheaper product but the quality is also lower. If you take our contract with Wowprime as an example, their chefs flew to Ireland to do taste tests. And they’re willing to pay the extra for Irish beef because they see the quality in it.

When do you expect the first product will arrive in China?

We expect to have the first deliveries arriving in China in July or August.

Have you other deals with Chinese customers in the pipeline?

Yes, we’re working on other deals. We’ve started with the foodservice industry but our next focus will be e-commerce or online retail. From an online retail point of view, China is an absolute juggernaut. Roughly 30% of all retail is done online in China, whereas back in Ireland online retail is much, much less. We’ll be targeting e-commerce companies such as JD.com and Tmall.com to get Irish beef online so Chinese consumers can buy it with their phones.