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Federal Agriculture Minister Lawrence MacAulay announced over $6 million for the Canadian beef industry.
Canada Beef will receive over $5.8 million for market development and promotion.
Canada Beef plays a key role in market development worldwide, with offices in Japan, South Korea, Vietnam, Thailand, Mexico, and Hong Kong.
President of Canada Beef Eric Bienvenue says Canadian beef is a world-class product, and this funding will support initiatives that increase awareness of the value
proposition of Canadian beef and veal exports to customers worldwide.
"We've been working in the different Indo-Pacific regions. The Gulf region is a market that we're going to be looking at, obviously, we're in great despair to get our China market to reopen soon. Europe will be another market that we're going to be focused on, and probably the Southern African market in the next few years."
Canada Beef has been working on various initiatives in the Indo-Pacific region, which has become a key market for us with four of Canada’s top six beef markets located there: Japan (#2), South Korea (#4), Vietnam (#5) and Hong Kong (#6).
Bienvenue says the federal funding will be used mainly for market missions, trade shows, seminars, brand and marketing initiatives, benchmarking retail and foodservice promotions, digital marketing, consumer marketing, world cuisine development, marketing materials, building events and working with our trade commissioners abroad.
Recent estimates from CanFax show the importance of market development and what it means for producers. Putting the value of beef exports at about $1295 per head carcass value.
Stats show the value of Canadian beef exports has increased over the years, going from $2.7 billion in 2018 to over $5 billion in sales in 2023 to 56 countries.
Overall, Bienvenue says the industry is thankful for the federal support in promoting the great job Canadian producers do on a daily basis, adding that it's a great product, with a great story that we need to continue to tell.