A total of €800,000 has been allocated to Bord Bia in 2023 as part of an initiative to develop a distinct brand for suckler beef, according to the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine.
Minister McConalogue also detailed that Bord Bia had already spent €790,000 on the initiative up to December 2022.
The leader of the Social Democrats and party spokesperson on agriculture, Holly Cairns, had asked the minister to provide an update on the work of the Suckler Brand Development Oversight Group, which was set up on the recommendation of the Beef Taskforce.
The taskforce had proposed that a group be established to “oversee the development of a suckler brand proposition by Bord Bia with a budget of up to €6 million”.
According to Minister McConalogue, the oversight group is chaired by the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (DAFM) and “includes a range of stakeholders from state agencies, the beef industry and farmer stakeholder representatives”.
He told Deputy Cairns that the group has “met five times to date with the next meeting due in the coming months”.
Minister McConalogue said despite “delays arising from the pandemic, good progress has been made on the initiative to date” and shared details of Bord Bia’s work on the project which included:
- A review of the opportunity for suckler beef based on research across a number of key European markets;
- Sharing within the oversight group the approach to implementing the brand proposition across the markets;
- Working with the sector to bring the Irish suckler beef proposition to market;
- The development of a collection of bespoke suckler video and photography, shot on farms in the summer of 2022;
- The development of Irish suckler beef communications for consumer audiences.
“The oversight group has provided input to each stage of the proposed suckler branding proposition as presented by Bord Bia at each meeting,” Minister McConalogue added.
Sinn Féin TD for Cavan-Monaghan, Matt Carthy, had recently questioned Jim O’Toole, the chief executive of Bord Bia, at a meeting of the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine on the “demand for a suckler PGI (protected geographical indication)”.
The chief executive of Bord Bia told the committee that it was “undertaking work to develop a proposition for suckler beef”.