Irish beef exporters will have to find outlets for as much as 70,000 tonnes of beef going to Britain when its ban on allowing beef from older animals into the foodchain is lifted next year.
The British authorities announced earlier this week that it would start removing the Over Thirty Months (OTM) rule and replacing it with a new testing system for BSE in mid 2005.
The rule, banning meat from cattle over that age entering the food chain, was introduced by the British in 1996 to protect its consumers from variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD), the human form of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE).
Since 1996, up to 7.3 million animals were slaughtered under the scheme and their bodies rendered into meat and bonemeal which was also destroyed.
The destruction scheme created major opportunities for Irish exporters who almost doubled their beef sales to the UK in the last five years. Last year, Irish exporters put 265,000 tonnes of beef into the British market, the highest ever export level of beef to that country.
Bord Bia estimated that the ending of the OTM rule in Britain could release an additional 185,000 tonnes of locally-produced beef to the British market in a full year.
"As Ireland is the dominant import supplier of prime beef to the British market, this decision could result in a diversion in the region of 70,000 tonnes of Irish beef from the UK to EU and international markets," it said in a statement yesterday.
The board, along with the Irish beef industry, had been gearing up for this challenge by solidifying the Irish market position with key customers in Britain and by continuing to build and penetrate markets in continental Europe, it added.
The board believed the final switchover, unlikely before the latter half of 2005, would not happen until the Food Standards Agency had advised that the testing system to replace it was robust.
It added that the British Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, had also stated that temporary measures to minimise disruption to the beef market would also be considered.
"Bord Bia is in constant contact with our key customers in the market and is confident that we can maintain a strong market position in British supermarkets as the overall availability of British prime cattle reduces in the medium term," said the statement.
"This confidence is based on the strong service levels provided by the Irish industry and boosted by the investments made by recent central packing and added-value facilities to serve leading retailers," it added.
"Bord Bia consumer research demonstrates that British consumers are increasingly attracted to an Irish beef offering. This is evidenced by the fact that a current Irish beef promotion in the market is achieving record customer response levels," it said.
A programme to find new or expand existing outlets in continental Europe is being planned and expansion there is possible because of a growing deficit of beef in the EU.
There has been a major growth in beef exports to continental Europe where consumption is back to pre-BSE-scare levels.
This year, Ireland is expected to sell 170,000 tonnes of beef to mainland European outlets. This will include record exports to Italy and the Nordic countries.