Examining the Italian beef and sheep supply chain, from production through to marketing, was the aim of a group of farmers from South West England when they visited Italy recently.
The group, coordinated by EBLEX southern senior regional manager, Dr Phil Hadley, was made up of nine representatives of the NFU South West livestock board, including the group’s chairman and EBLEX board member Andy Foot, and national board representative Ed Green.
They visited the Padua area in northern Italy, where they saw a beef unit finishing Charolais cattle. They also had the opportunity to see a traditional Italian sheep enterprise using a community grazing system, where approximately 2,000 ewes graze across several fields.
The itinerary also included a trip to a large supermarket stocking Quality Standard Mark lamb from England, where they met the head of the meat department and learnt more about how the store operates and his reason for choosing Quality Standard Mark product.
EBLEX board member and chairman of the NFU South West livestock board Andy Foot said: “The trip gave us an insight into Italian beef and sheep production systems, as well as helping us find out more about the promotion, branding and marketing of high quality English products sold on the European market.
“We clearly saw that there is a high level of demand among Italian consumers for quality assured product such as Quality Standard Mark lamb.”
This story was originally published on a previous version of the Meat Management website and so there may be some missing images and formatting issues.
