Selling meat abroad

seizer78

I can’t seem to get any information on the web so I’m wondering if anyone has done this before or know if there is red tape to get through. I am thinking of changing my stock to premium breed cattle and selling the meat abroad. Can this be done as a individual farmer? I’m thinking of selling to the Middle East or Asia but as I’m not a big company, can a individual do this. Or do I have to sell my meat to marts. Im sick of not getting the return on my animals and looking at different options.

Austinbrick

Fair play to you!!!

We will all be following you on a new trade route to the Middle East.

The Mart is like following the Irish Soccer Team at the minute. We hope for the best result again and again but rarely get it.

Rusheseverywhere

https://www.gov.ie/en/publication/b2adc-import-and-export-licensing/

https://www.gov.ie/en/service/046a44-register-with-traces/

Good luck lots of paperwork. In short marts,plant, let or sell.

seizer78

Thank you. Not sure why I couldn’t find that on the government website. The amount of paperwork is probably why others haven’t gone down this route.

funkey_monkey

Chances of that happening would be slim in my opinion. You'd not have the volume to make anyone be bothered working with you.

Your best bet would be to go along the lines of butchering from home and selling at local marts or supplying into local restaurants/butchers/shops or your own farmshop if you have sufficient footfall. Would you have sufficient stock to maintain a year round supply?

It would be a lot of work though. From recollection @AntrimGlens did or still does meat packs from home but I've not seen them on here in a while.

Danzy

Look up a Dublin woman in Tipperary selling Dexter beef globally.

Deub

Would selling the meat directly from the farm be an option?

I don’t see any signs on the road advertising for on farm products. I know it is common in France but I imagine insurance is the killer.

AntrimGlens

It can be done, however it is a pain in the arse if you want to bring it all in house and do it yourself, the red tape, form filling, audits and bureaucracy would put years on you. I use an EU approved facility as it has to be EU approved to be able to retail to restaurants, to sell outside of the EU I don't know what you would need. I drop the animal off at the abattoir, it is killed, and hung for a week then sent in a refrigerated lorry to the butcher who does my processing. He hangs it for a while then cuts it into whatever I want and then I collect it in a refrigerated van and put it into a coldstore on the farm. From here it is packed and then shipped on by DPD in chilled boxes but only within NI.

It is viable? - not unless you can make use of the cuts that people don't want. We had thought people would buy a full lamb or half lamb carcase but that transpired not to be the case. People (other than farmers) don't have the size of a freezer needed to be able to store that volume of meat so they ended up purchasing a couple of different cuts for a specific meal or occasion. This resulted in the less popular cuts having to be used in prepared meals, albeit this had a far better mark up than individual cuts.

When it came down to it, we found that restaurants didn't give a flying fig where their meat came from it was all based on cost. We appeared on a number of tv programmes, cookery programmes, had a good social media profile, won Blas na heireann awards and had loads of the top chefs out on farm all who ranted and raved about the quality of the meat, but they wouldn't go that extra £ per kg for local provenance and that was pre-covid, it's got a lot tighter since.

The hidden costs all add up, between abattoir deliveries, killing fees, delivery, processing, branded boxes, flyers, recipe cards, domain names, e-commerce site fees, free samples, refrigeration costs, DPD, insurance and the list goes on.

It takes time to do it right and that's not easy when you're farming part time, working full time and trying to have a family life either, but all the same I'm happy that i gave it a go and I haven't given up on it yet.

kerryjack

Ya its a rat race at the minute I see dunne stores are delivering out here at the minute and nearest store is 30 km away, Tesco and super value all ready on the road, will aldi and lidil get in on this probably will. Time and money seems to be in short supply with families at the minute with 2 parents working a trip to town to do the shopping is gone.