While other countries are supporting exports to Muslim markets, Government inaction means UK businesses are at risk of being shut out, argues Norman Bagley.
As some readers may know, I spent a few weeks in New Zealand before Christmas and took the opportunity while there to visit one of the largest cattle and sheep producing stations in the country.
If there’s one thing the New Zealand Government knows, it’s the real value, and the true value to their economy, of having processing businesses that can supply the fastest-growing meat-eating sector in the world, the Muslim market, and supplying 100% stunned.
Now, it would appear, joining NZ, Australia and Brazil is Canada.
Cast your minds back to early 2024 and the then UK Government’s smaller abattoir fund. This made it clear that there would only be funding for sites that did not carry out, or allow their premises to be used for, non-stun slaughter at any time during the five-year period of the grant funding agreement, demonstrating a clear Government preference.
Meanwhile, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, the equivalent of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), is currently running its own grant scheme, The Kosher and Halal Investment Program.
One processor, Atlantic Beef Products Inc. (ABPI) has been awarded CAD $2,256,786 to help finance the implementation of advanced technologies and packaging processes with the aim of increasing meat yield from beef products and enhancing packaging options for halal-certified products destined for Canadian retailers.
According to ABPI, it is actively expanding its global footprint beyond the core Atlantic Canada/US markets into international sales, and the recent investment will help it “expand into growing halal/kosher markets, focusing on traceability and premium, distinct products for global consumers”.
No doubt, unlike British processors, it will be knocking on buyers’ doors in the world’s largest halal markets, Malaysia and Indonesia.
Looking at the UK Business Academy’s (UKBA) website, it says of Indonesia that it is currently the world’s 10th biggest economy in terms of purchasing power parity, with economic growth being driven by an emerging middle class that could lead to it being the fourth biggest by 2050.
And yet, there is no Export Health Certificate (EHC) in place for British beef, lamb or poultry.
As regards Malaysia, UKBA notes that it has “an increasingly affluent middle class that is willing to pay for quality” and that “British brands are well respected in the market”.
Like Indonesia, there is no Export Health Certificate in place for British beef, lamb or poultry.
But here’s the rub, by the time you read this column, UKBA will have hosted a webinar on ‘Exporting Food and Drink to Malaysia’, which will be followed in March with an in-person meet-the-buyer event in Kuala Lumpur for British food and drink businesses.
UKBA is operated by the Department for Business and Trade (DBT), whereas Export Health Certificates originate out of Defra.
The Canadian pitch for its halal beef is focused on “traceability and premium, distinct products for global consumers”. These are, of course, the same features and benefits that UK processors and the whole supply chain have in spade loads.
It would appear to me that, while DBT has been tasked with delivering the UK’s growth agenda, Defra’s reluctance to simply issue EHCs for fully stunned beef, lamb and poultry for these two huge markets suggests that it appears to want to create market barriers rather than to look for access solutions.
