The minister visited the Carrefour Italia Gourmet store on Piazza Morelli for a promotion and tasting of Irish Hereford Beef and a meeting with Carrefour Italia Buying Director, Giovanni Panzeri. He was accompanied by Aidan Cotter, Chief Executive Officer of Bord Bia.

Since Bord Bia’s involvement in the successful television show, MasterChef Italy in 2014, Carrefour Italia have chosen to stock Irish Hereford Prime in their stores, launching an Irish Hereford premium beef range across three hypermarkets in Milan. Since March 2014, the French-owned retailer has extended this to 100 stores, with Irish Hereford beef now on the shelves in stores from Milan to Sicily.

Speaking from Rome yesterday, Coveney said, “It is a pleasure to be in Italy promoting sustainably produced Irish beef. International trade has been the key driver of our economic recovery and the agri-food sector has played a significant part in this. This year Bord Bia will invest €3.5m across an integrated marketing communications programme to continue to raise awareness and understanding of the Origin Green programme, targeting key customers of Irish food and drink in Europe. As an exporting nation, our international markets are key to the long-term sustainability of our beef sector.”

Aidan Cotter added that Italy represents an important market for Irish food and drink exports, saying that Italy was Ireland's third-largest export destination for Irish beef after the UK and France in 2014. "We exported approximately 47,000 tonnes of Irish beef to Italy, accounting for almost 20% of total exports to Continental Europe. It is the main export product and accounts for 60% of Ireland’s exports to Italy, with a value of €184m,” he said.

Irish beef in Italy

With just 51% self-sufficiency in beef supply, Italy is the largest importer of beef in the European Union, taking in 400,000 tonnes of beef annually. Based on 2014 figures, Irish beef accounts for almost 12% of Italy’s beef import requirement.

According to Bord Bia, the market is nonetheless extremely competitive and price sensitive. France is Ireland’s main competitor for quality imported beef but there is growing competition in the market from Poland and Germany.

Furthermore, economic conditions in Italy have been challenging for a number of years and tough measures have been brought in to tackle debt levels. The south has been hit more strongly by the recession than the north, due to high unemployment levels in this part of the country. This has led to lifestyle changes in some cases, with a decrease in red meat consumption from 22.8kg in 2012 to 20.2kg in 2014 per capita.

Although Italians still prefer to buy meat at their local traditional butcher, large retailers’ share in total beef sales has been increasing gradually to about 65% vs 35% in the butcher channel.

Irish beef has a long presence on the market and is currently sold in each of the top five Italian retailers under a variety of different brands. 60% of Irish beef is sold through retail vs 40% sold through foodservice channels.