On the shelves of the Metro supermarket and cash-and-carry in Shanghai, Irish dairy products from infant formula to butter and cheese are identified with bright tricolours – a clear indication of Ireland's reputation as a source of quality, safe food among Chinese shoppers.

Irish infant formula products on sale in Shanghai, China. \ Thomas Hubert

Beef buyers who met in China this week knew that Ireland was now cleared to ship beef to the country, but other food professionals had a much more limited awareness of Irish food outside dairy and ordinary consumers even less.

This gives an idea of the challenge ahead: getting approval to import into China is only a starting point – winning market share in a country where clearly labelled Australian beef is already present on the shelves of all supermarkets visited by middle-class shoppers will be another story.

Frozen Australian beef on sale in Shanghai, China. \ Thomas Hubert

"If your price is high, it will be difficult," said Hans Han, a beef buyer in the southern trading hub of Shenzhen who sources most of his beef from Brazil's JBS. "Everybody already knows beef, it's not a new product," he warned, as consumers are on the hunt for novelty. "China is so competitive – maybe if you go into higher-end markets like hotels, the price is less important."

This is the strategy being developed by Bord Bia. On a trade mission to China this week, its chief executive Tara McCarthy told the Irish Farmers Journal that the Food Board would prioritise "positioning towards food service and online, finding the right distributors and building an awareness that Ireland is here."

Also visiting the country, IFA president Joe Healy said a "brand Ireland approach" was needed to sell Irish beef into China, referring to Kerrygold's success. Ornua has begun the work of establishing Ireland as a food brand.

Product descriptions for Kerrygold products on China's leading online shopping platforms Tmall and JD. \ Thomas Hubert

Descriptions of Kerrygold products on online shopping platforms feature pictures of cows on green Irish pastures and facts and figures about farming in Ireland. Consumers here are hungry for this information and the head of a new high-end e-shopping platform in Shenzhen said that his focus was on producing videos showing where the food on sale was coming from.

At the 100,000-visitor SIAL trade show in Shanghai, Ireland's stand displayed both the name of the country and the mention "European beef and lamb – excellence in food safety and traceability".

This is because participation in the show was part of a €3.75m EU-funded campaign to use the Irish example in promoting European meat in Asia. It is also a way of building on recognised EU standards. "We now have one of the best food safety systems in the world," Jérome Lepeintre of the EU delegation to China told a meat industry seminar in Shanghai this week, detailing improvements to European legislation and traceability systems since the BSE crisis.

People want the story of the country behind the food

Yet branding food as European is not enough. "People want the story of the country behind the food," said an executive from a Shenzhen-based food packaging company. McCarthy told that story at the meat industry seminar, saying to her Chinese counterparts: "Our cows and our sheep spend most of their life outside, grazing on lush pastures where air pollution is among the lowest in the world."

During discussions on the Chinese market as part of this week's trade missions, the chief executive of an Irish beef processor suggested using the mention seen on some infant formula products: "From the EU, made in Ireland". Getting it right in the tight window before other, better-known European countries obtain the green light to export beef to China will be crucial.

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