CALGARY – When Asians are shopping for beef on the world market, their top choices are short ribs or specially prepared tongue for the barbecue.
And Canadian processors are rising to the challenge by preparing those specific orders. Such willingness to oblige is building the Canadian success story and reputation as it continues to sell more beef to Japan, South Korea and Hong Kong each year.
“A number of companies are willing to serve customers internationally. There’s a new spirit of meeting customers’ needs around the world,” said Ted Haney, executive vice-president of the Canada Beef Export Federation. The federation is a conglomerate of cattlemen’s associations, packers and processors aiming to increase Asian beef exports.
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Business has increased by 100 percent for some processors who provide high quality, portion controlled, processed items, the federation said.
Taste for tongue
First-rate tongues are going into Asia in a high-value form where they’re blocked, skinned, spiced and ready to cook in specialty restaurants.
Another dish in demand is short ribs, also in ready to cook packages.
“Short ribs are a mainstay dish in Korea. The short rib is Korea’s T-bone steak,” said Haney. The South Korean demand for short ribs has been so strong that a number of Canadian processors were sold out for the first half of the year.
With such promising sales figures, the federation claims its dream of selling 105,000 tonnes of beef and veal to Asia by the year 2000 can be achieved.
Japan is the most prominent buyer of Canadian product, but South Korea is buying more every year as its trade quotas relax.
Exports to Japan for the January to June, 1995 period were 4,858 tonnes, a six percent increase over the same time last year.
South Korean purchases were up 149 percent for the same period. Last year by the end of June this market had taken 390 tonnes of beef products. This year 972 tonnes had been marketed.
Other Asian customers were down 28 percent but overall, Asian sales were up 10 percent.
Canada’s competitors for this market are the United States and Australia.
From January to June, 1995, U.S. beef exports to Asia totaled 212,217 tonnes edging out Australia, according to the U.S. Meat Export Federation. The U.S garnered 46.02 percent of the Japanese market compared to Australia which holds 46.01 percent, a drop from 52.6 percent in 1994.
Total U.S. beef exports were 422,055 worldwide for the first six months of this year.
Total U.S. exports are projected to be 844,110 tonnes compared to 1994’s export total of 790,452.
