There is currently not enough organic beef coming on stream in Ireland to fulfil contracts with larger retailers across Europe, Emmet Doyle, organic sector manager with Bord Bia has said.

The issue to date with markets for organic produce, according to Doyle, has been scale.

“To put this is context, last year approximately 3,900t of organic beef was produced. Half of this goes to the Irish market and we’re exporting the other half.

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“There’s not enough tonnage there to go into a mainstream retailer who’s looking for volumes 52 weeks of the year,” he said.

Compared to the rest of Europe in terms of organic retail sales, Ireland, for the last two years has averaged around €200m per year while in Germany and France, retail sales are worth €15bn and €13bn each year. Countries like the UK and Switzerland all have €3bn to €4bn worth of organic sales on an annual basis, according to Doyle.

“We see a lot of opportunities in these markets. We already have some organic product coming through there in small scale but once we have more volumes coming through, we can push hard into more retailers and higher paying retailers,” he said.

Meanwhile, in relation to the domestic market, Bord Bia carried out a research project during the first six months of this year, targeting 2,500 Irish consumers, to see how they interact with the organic sector.

Almost 90% of all shoppers said they are buying into organics in some format.

One in two shoppers are buying either organic dairy, eggs, meat and vegetables on a weekly basis.

When they asked shoppers about the next 12 months, 45% said they are looking to increase their level of organic consumption.

Three-quarters of all shoppers also said that they were prepared to pay a premium of 5% on organic produce while half of shoppers said they would pay a premium of 10% to 15%.

It was also found that the generation which is actively looking for organic produce when out shopping is a younger demographic, those in the 25 to 45 age range.

Later this year, Bord Bia is set to launch the first ever national organic marketing campaign, which will be aimed at this younger audience.