Speaking at the Meat Prospects seminar, he said the Irish beef industry can market “grass-fed niche products to the East Coast (US) markets”.
His department is also in negotiations with Chinese authorities with a view to opening that market and he said: “You cannot emphasise too much the obsession that China has with food safety.”
He cautioned Ireland’s top meat processors who were present about the danger of food scares: “Food safety risks come out of nowhere, as I have learned over the years, and many of you have the scars as well. Horsemeat was a case in point. We did not anticipate it,” he said. But he added that some of the top processors across the world were also taken by surprise.
“People who are involved in the food business, from primary production right up, you need to anticipate the risk in the food chain, you have to have systems that are verified and reviewed and that are constantly challenged,” he said.
Speakers at the seminar, held last Friday, were buoyed by positive export figures for 2013 and the re-opening of several markets to Irish beef post-BSE despite the horsemeat crisis.