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Spanish beef “attack” Vietnam market

This is some of the information shared by Mr. José Ramón Godoy, Internationalization Coordinator of the Argo-food Inter-professional Organization of the Spanish Beef Industry (Provacuno), at the Launching of the campaign "What Wonderful European Beef", held in Hanoi on 26/11.

Mr. José Ramón Godoy said that: Spain is one of the largest beef producers in Europe. Currently, Spain has 110 farms, 300 abattoirs, 150 processing departments with output of 650,000 tons per year, in that the export volume is 175,000 tons per year.

In the past, Spanish beef did not appear in Vietnam because of food safety issues that were mad cow disease in Europe. In 2016, the World Organization for Animal Health recognized Spain as a low risk country for mad cow disease, so it could export to many countries.

About the reason for choosing to "attack" the Vietnamese market, Mr. Godoy said that: Firstly, Vietnam has a relatively large population of about 100 million people. Besides that, the population of Vietnam is young, the purchasing power of Vietnamese people is increasing ... "We planned to promote beef exports in the Vietnam market for 3 years through the following activities: participating fairly to the market, and deploying promotional activities with importers and media …," Mr. Godoy said.

About the quality, Mr. Godoy shared that: Spanish beef is comparable to Australian beef with high quality meat. Most countries only sell mature beef over 24 months old, the meat is redder, stiffer and smells more characteristictly of beef. However, Spain sells both steer and veal. The veal meat is soft, aromatic and much better.

At present, there are four Spanish enterprises that were licensed to export beef to Vietnam. In terms of price, there are three prices depending on three different product lines on beef. The lowest price with the worst quality is from India and Pakistan, due to the meat being from old cows with low food value. The second is meat from South America and from Brazil that are grass-fed animals. As the cattles’ age is relatively old, meat requires a long cooking time. The third is the highest quality meat. Spanish meat will be priced like meat from countries selling high quality products such as Australia, USA and Canada...

"About the strategy to "attack" the Vietnamese market, we do not have any policies or strategies, but only offer superior products for people to try and love. In terms of cost of promoting the export of Spanish beef, the total amount is 2 million Euros for 4 markets, including Vietnam, Hong Kong, Dubai and Saudi Arabia," Mr Godoy added.

Source: Customs News