Bord Bia to promote quality of Irish produce to worldwide audience

BORD BIA is poised to bring Irish food and drink to a worldwide audience in the days before and after St Patrick’s Day.

It is co-ordinating a series of promotional activities from Paris to Shanghai to highlight the range, quality and supply capability of Irish food and drink.

Agriculture Minister Brendan Smith will travel to Italy to attend a number of trade events in Rome, Milan and Bologna.

Included in his itinerary are visits to the purchasers of Irish live cattle and meetings with Italian multiples.

These include Co-op Italia, the country’s largest retail chain and the market’s single biggest buyer of Irish beef.

Irish food and drink exports to Italy were valued at €244 million for the first nine months of 2009. Total exports in 2008 were valued at €362m.

Bord Bia will also promote Irish beef and speciality foods in Britain, this country’s most important export market, with food and drink exports valued at just under €3.1 billion (44%) in 2009.

On St Patrick’s Day Justice Minister Dermot Ahern will attend a Bord Bia trade lunch in Paris, where 27 of the Brasserie Flo restaurants are running promotions of Irish beef, lamb, oysters, crab, smoked salmon, farmhouse cheese, Guinness, Baileys and Irish whiskey. To reach in excess of 4.5 million French consumers, Bord Bia is also running a number of high profile online campaigns.

France is Ireland’s second most important market with annual exports valued at almost €360m for the first nine months of 2009.

Bord Bia and the Irish ambassador to the Netherlands Mary Whelan will host an Irish drinks tasting session for trade buyers and contacts in Amsterdam tomorrow.

A business networking event will follow.

In conjunction with Tourism Ireland, Bord Bia hosted an Irish lunch in Portugal yesterday and will do likewise in Madrid on Wednesday.

For the first time, the St Patrick’s Day Parade in Moscow will include two Irish floats promoting Kerrygold and Jameson.