THE past year has posed many challenges for our Certified Irish Angus beef. Competition from cheap products such as chicken and pork and an ever increasing price conscious shopping public has made trading more difficult than ever. Having said that, our products have one huge advantage over all the others – their quality. In a time when the spotlight is being turned on value for money,

Certified Irish Angus beef is shining through on value, flavour, tenderness and reliability. These key ingredients have ensured that consumers continued to support our products as a treat for themselves.

In a time when there was little to look forward to, it was comforting to be able to come home to a Certified Irish Angus steak – its flavour satisfied both body and soul.

The first three months of 2009 posed some of the greatest challenges the Producer Group has ever had to endure.

A reduction in demand led to a build-up of cattle on farms and a reduction in price across all beef.

Demand over this period from some of our European customers faded to a trickle as the recession hit their consumers hard. We reacted by developing new lines and new cheaper products produced from cheaper cuts of beef. This in turn helped us maintain the level of brand loyalty we had worked so hard to achieve.

By early summer, the European situation had started to show some signs of improving. These improvements turned out to be small, but it is encouraging to note that any gains we made, we held onto, and sales continue to rise slowly. At the same time, we increased our efforts on the home market. This proved to be extremely difficult due to a combination of lower disposable income and the poor summer. Our barbeque range proved to be a waste of time as the rain fell day after day. This range would normally help us sell huge amounts of steak and burgers (which uses up lots of fore quarter).

Our long established business with Tesco continues to grow steadily and is responsible for 75% of the total premium paid to farmer members. Consumer satisfaction with the Tesco “Finest” brand across all other products has in turn led to increased demand for Tesco “Finest” Certified Irish Angus beef.

The roll out of Certified Irish Angus beef in all the Tesco meat counters has ensured that consumers who like to purchase their beef from a butcher rather than pre-packed are facilitated. This has led to satisfactory growth within this market.

As the summer progressed, our presence with Aldi began to mushroom. The growth in this market has surprised all involved.

As Aldi develops new stores and rolls out its Certified Irish Angus range, the sales just seem to jump ahead.

The Producer Group is extremely proud of this business with Aldi. Initially, the general opinion would have been that a product like Certified Irish Angus would not fit the model of Aldi. This has been proven wrong and the Aldi business is becoming of huge importance to the Producer Group and its farmer members.

Finally, the Producer Group would like to recognise the huge effort that our members have put into producing the quality cattle that makes the Certified Angus Beef Scheme possible. We appreciate the extremely difficult circumstances farmers find themselves in over the past 12 months. Yet the quality of the cattle remains excellent.

As to the future and what it holds for us all, it is difficult to predict with any level of accuracy. However, the Producer Group feels that with the quality of our cattle/product, farmers with Angus cattle will win out in the long term. Hopefully “not too long term”.