Chinese dairy buyers at the Bord Bia Marketplace event in Dublin say they are looking for ‘quality’ and ‘safe’ dairy ingredients.
The Beijing Milky Way Trade has been trading with Dairygold since 2001 and this historical connection has been an important factor in looking to increase the amount of dairy product it will buy from Ireland.
Quanyu Wang, Vice General Manager, with the Beijing Milky Way company said the company is 20 years old and has three main offices in China, importing in the region of 10,000t of powders from Ireland in 2014.
He said Ireland has a strong competitive advantage over New Zealand in that it can provide all the key ingredients for infant formula production.
The Beijing Milky Way is one of China’s largest dairy ingredients providers and has five manufacturing plants in China.
Wang said that the two main keywords he associates with Irish dairy production are ‘safety’ and ‘green’.
He said Irish powders, which are used as the basic of infant formula in China are sold in cans and sachets throughout China.
Bord Bia Marketplace has over 5,000 meetings happening between 185 Irish food and drink companies and 400 international food and drink buyers. Of these, some 106 Asian buyers are at the event, while 38 are from the Middle East.