English Archives - Page 2 of 2 - Irish Food & Drink

From a shopper insights point of view, Bord Bia’s Covid Indicators, 2020, the effects of Covid-19 resulted in an increase in the purchase of beef. Shoppers sought to replace their restaurant experience and beef, especially steak had an important role in delivering this.

After 18 months of scratch cooking, shoppers are now looking for more variation and inspiration. In the UK, Germany, Netherlands and Belgium, shoppers have wanted a change from beef. Dutch and UK shoppers are purchasing more shellfish and turkey as an alternative and in Italy and Ireland, shoppers are looking for something easier to cook than beef. Hence across the board beef shoppers need more inspiration to maintain current purchase levels. Showing examples of what the final meal could look like and highlighting the USPs of Irish origin and traceability could no doubt help inspire shoppers.

Ireland’s grass-fed messaging can help offer the variation shoppers are looking for and convince shoppers to pay extra for their beef. We are seeing the beginnings of a post-Covid bounce in concern for sustainability. Shoppers claim they intend to cut back on beef consumption in the next three years, driven primarily by concerns over animal welfare and the environmental impact of beef production. Grass-fed beef is more likely to drive future purchase of beef compared to this time last year, with three in ten beef shoppers in Sweden, UK and Germany saying they would be more likely to buy beef if it’s grass-fed, something Irish beef can claim and verify at scale.

For more information, please get in touch with danny.bowles@bordbia.ie, or your local Bord Bia office.

Every month, Bord Bia interviews 375 grocery shoppers in key European markets: Ireland, UK, Netherlands, Germany, Belgium, Italy and Sweden; in order to understand key dynamics around buying proteins. We have been collecting these insights since Autumn 2019, allowing us to reliably compare trends in consumption, purchase patterns and attitudes to the same period in the year previous. For more information, you can view the headline European report here.

As we emerge from an extremely challenging year, I am so proud to see how our Origin Green members have continued to innovate and develop their sustainability business plans, offering consumers more sustainable and locally produced food and drink products.

Origin Green is Ireland’s food and drink sustainability programme, and drives sustainability improvements across the entire supply chain from farmers to manufacturers, to foodservice and retailers. Collaboration and partnership is at the heart of what we do in Ireland, and it is critical to acting and developing sustainably – recognized in #17 of the UN Sustainable Development Goals. As of now, Origin Green aligns with 15 of the 17 SDGs, and to further support this, Bord Bia became a United Nations Global Compact (UNGC) member in June of 2018.

Presently, we are almost six years on from the agreement of SDGs by UN Member States in 2015 and now have nine years remaining to achieve our ambitious targets and end issues such as hunger and inequality, while protecting our planet from climate change. SDG #17, Partnership for the Goal, reiterates the importance of coming together to implement sustainable development. Partnership has always been part of the Irish story of food production, small family farms meant and still mean that neighbours help one another – we even have a name in the Irish language for this ‘meitheal’ and although there is no direct translation, the meaning is a co-operative or a team of mutually supporting workers.

Origin Green puts a framework behind our farming systems: As a country with family farming traditions and lush green pastures, Ireland has a history of being recognised as sustainable, however, Origin Green is striving to create proof-points behind that, to put a systematic framework in place to prove that food is produced sustainably here. The programme does just that, Origin Green connects all parts of the supply chain; 53,000 farms, 324 Irish food producers (representing over 90% of our exports) the government and international NGOs, to prove and improve the sustainability of the food they produce to meet the evolving needs of global customers and consumers. Origin Green shows that Irish food and drink producers have a sustainability plan, that they are driving change, that they are making improvements, and that it is independently verified. Our member companies have set over 2,400 sustainability targets. Throughout the country, over 100 independent auditors undertake 650 weekly assessments on farm as part of our Sustainable Assurance Schemes. In addition to quality measures, the sustainability criteria being measured and monitored are greenhouse gas emissions, biodiversity, water use, energy efficiency, soil management and socio-economic factors.

The commitment of our members to Origin Green shows that there is a national movement. The challenge for us and for our members is to continue to focus on driving those proof-points and maintaining our reputation as a leader of sustainability. The programme continues to play a pivotal role in evolving the advancement of the Sustainable Development Goals within the Irish food and drink industry.

We share our Origin Green story with the world: We can demonstrate the alignment of the Origin Green Charter now with 15 of the 17 SDGs. We are going further by creating a cohort of future leaders in sustainability – this year will see the 50^th Origin Green Ambassador appointed as part of our Talent Academy. Collectively these future leaders have undertaken over 100 projects with companies in 14 countries including the US, China, UAE and Europe. Origin Green and what we are doing in Ireland continues to evolve, most recently establishing the world’s first national grass-fed standard independently verifying the proportion of grass in our dairy and beef herds’ diet.

As we emerge from the Covid-19 pandemic and realise the realities of climate and biodiversity crises, it is critical that we all come together as a planet to drive the sustainability agenda forward. With the UN Food Systems Summit taking place this July, it is vital that food producers recognise the role we play in ensuring our food systems develop better production systems, employment conditions, and drive change for sustainability. Bord Bia’s ongoing development and evolution of the Origin Green programme showcases our steadfast commitment to promoting the delivery of the SDGs within the Irish food and drink industry.

For more information visit: www.origingreen.ie

Author: Deirdre Ryan

Deirdre Ryan holds an MSc in Business Sustainability, an MBS in International Business from UCD Smurfit Graduate School, and a degree in International Commerce with Italian from University College Dublin. She is also an Irish Olympian; she competed in the high jump at the London 2012 Olympics.

Prior to her appointment in Bord Bia, Deirdre was Head of Corporate Social Responsibility for Lidl Ireland & Northern Ireland, where she led the development and implementation of their sustainability strategy. From 2013 to 2015, as part of Bord Bia’s Origin Green Ambassador programme, Deirdre was responsible for building trade awareness globally for the sustainability credentials of Irish food and drink producers.

With a drive towards a more balanced way of being emerging in a Covid driven world, it is no surprise to see people move away from stricter dietary regimes and adhering to a flexitarian lifestyle across the nine markets researched in our Dietary Lifestyle Study 2021.

This study was designed to understand how dietary lifestyles have evolved since 2018. The purpose of the study was to enable the food and drinks industry learn how people are approaching their diets, looking in particular at relationships with protein and alternative proteins.

Our partners in designing this study were Empathy Research. This multimarket study was conducted across 9 markets and involved over 18,000 participants

Below is an outline of some of the key findings.

Health, wellness and sustainability continue to take precedence

Health and sustainability continue to drive interest in following these dietary lifestyles with 81% of people deeming themselves to be very healthy and 65% of people making more of an effort to be aware of the environment around them. Both trends have been accentuated since Covid with 64% saying that eating healthily is a priority for them now and 47% of global consumers reporting that ethically and sustainably sourced ingredients are more important to them now than before the pandemic.

Dietary lifestyles are moving towards “balance”

70% of the population do not subscribe to any particular diet. Overall there seems to be a move towards balance, with 55% of people saying they are trying to eat a balanced diet, and don’t follow a specific dietary lifestyle (this is +3% since 2018). Only 4% of people say that they are STRICTLY following a specific diet or lifestyle (this is down 6% on 2018).

Stay tuned for our next insight into dietary lifestyles 2021. To learn more please contact your local market specialist and they can set up a time to take you through the reports in all its detail. Alternatively the global and local market reports are available to download at.

https://www.bordbia.ie/industry/insights/publications/dietary-lifestyle-report-march-2021/

The Irish Dairy Industry demonstrated its resilience in 2020, utilising a record 8.2bn litre milk pool to deliver an export value of €5.068bn, an increase of 1% on 2019. This increase in export value was achieved despite a challenging macro environment with strong global milk supply, constrained global oil prices and economic uncertainty driven by Covid-19, Brexit and other trade and supply chain issues.

From a product perspective, butter was Irelands flagship product with total exports valued at €965 million, driven for the most part by retail demand and consumers turning to home-baking and scratch-cooking during lockdown.

The closure of foodservice outlets across the globe has had a negative impact on cheese demand, however strong retail demand coupled with the ingenuity and agility of the Irish industry to pivot, including new sku formats limited the impact. Irish exports of cheese declined by 7% in volume terms in 2020, but export value remained close to the 2019 figure of €956 million as a result of strong global prices.

Irish dairy powders also had a robust year, with Fat Filled Milk Powder (FFMP) the most noticeable registering a 7% increase in export value to €834 million.

2021 performance year-to-date

Despite Irish milk supply registering a 9.5% year-on-year increase in milk supply in Q1 of this year, dairy exports were back year-on-year by over 16% in volume and 12% in value terms. The year-on-year decline can be attributed to 2 main factors; 1. Irish exporter’s forward moving stock to the UK, Irelands largest export market in 2020 in advance of Brexit deadlines which is exaggerating the decline and 2. Global trade logistical issues. Strong commodity prices have helped increase farm-gate prices, and it is envisaged as stock is used up that exports will come back in line with trends in the second half of the year.

Grass-fed update

The Bord Bia Grass Fed Standard has been launched and is in the process of being rolled out across the Irish dairy industry. The standard is the first of its kind to be operated at a national level, with all Irish processors expressing ambition to become certified to the standard. Currently, there are 12 processing sites certified to the standard with others currently undergoing the audit process.

A dispatch database for member plants and international packers as per the Logo Use Policy has been developed and is ready for use. Bord Bia have engaged with members who are interested in using the database for their products.

Bord Bia have also begun engaging with member processors regarding their priority ‘phase 2’ products which include mixed products ie flavoured cheese, fat filled milk powder etc. The feedback from this engagement will be used to shape the criteria in the Grass Fed Logo Use Policy for those products.

Brexit drew attention to the challenges it creates for Irish exporters to the UK. However, Brexit can also create opportunities for Irish food and drink exporters.

UK exporters to continental Europe were also going to face complexity. Bord Bia decided to examine what produce the UK had been exporting to the EU and the key markets where Ireland could compete.

A quantitative assessment of what the UK was exporting, to where and what export was in growth over the past number of years was conducted. The results were married with the depth of understanding of Irish industry capacity that Bord Bia has.

Key target categories and markets emerged:

Meat
PCF
Consumer dairy
Seafood

The research found UK exports in these categories worth €1.3bn in 2019. Other EU origin produce could challenge this.

Buyers of UK produce in these categories appreciated the UK suppliers NPD capacities in the PCF category in particular.

As supply challenges and cost implications for buyers sourcing from UK were imminent, Bord Bia’s client network had informed conversations with buyers around how they could solve these problems.

HMRC recorded a 40% decline in the value of UK exports of food and drink to the UK in the first three months of 2021. Significant declines in UK export were seen in exports of meat (-52%), dairy (-62%) and food preparations (-34%). In these areas, Ireland has world-class produce capable of fulfilling EU customers’ needs.

Irish suppliers stand ready to substitute UK produce supply by removing third country risk from your supply chain while delivering on taste and sustainable production systems.

To find out more please contact your local Bord Bia office.