As St Patrick’s Day approaches, Bord Bia is preparing to bring Irish food and drink to an international audience, with a series of promotional activities across 18 countries.
Details
From Lagos to London, through its network of international offices, Bord Bia has scheduled events aimed at growing business in established markets and creating an awareness of Ireland’s food-and-drink offering in emerging markets. The St Patrick’s-themed global programme will include events for consumers, retailers, and trade and foodservice operators, to highlight the range, quality, and supply capability of Irish food and drink.
Launching this year’s programme of activity, Bord Bia CEO Jim O’Toole said, “St Patrick’s Day is a globally renowned festival and provides the industry with a wonderful opportunity to maximise the excellent reputation of Irish food, drink and horticulture, and to showcase Origin Green – Ireland’s national food-and-drink sustainability programme – abroad. Through opportunities with existing and new customers, Bord Bia will engage in senior-level trade meetings, online campaigns, retail and restaurant promotions, in-store tastings, cookery demonstrations, media briefings, and on-the-ground Irish food festivals – all with an aim of increasing the global footprint of Ireland’s food-and-drink industry.”
Planned Promotional Events
The UK continues to be Ireland’s principal destination for exports, valued at an estimated €5.4 billion in 2022. Bord Bia is engaging in an extensive national publicity programme in the UK, to promote Irish beef, drink, and speciality foods. Irish produce will be showcased to over 30,000 people at the Lord Mayor of London’s official St Patrick’s Day consumer event in Trafalgar Square. This is a public event, with over 30,000 people in attendance annually.
The annual Meet the Makers drink trade event sees 16 Irish spirit, cream liqueur and craft beer producers showcase their drinks to 70+ buyers and other key industry influencers. In China, where online retail sales exceed $1 trillion each year, Bord Bia’s team in Shanghai is partnering with importer-supermarket City’super to promote Irish cheese, butter and whiskey, with a week-long promotion covering e-commerce and four physical stores in Shanghai.
During the month of March, Bord Bia’s Irish beef and seafood promotions will target millions of consumers in Europe via grocery retailers in France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, the Nordics and Spain, across more than 1,400 stores.
On 17 March, Bord Bia CEO O’Toole will welcome the Minister of State for Trade Promotion, Digital and Company Regulation, Dara Calleary TD, at a trade event in France, hosted by the CEO of Carrefour France, Rami Baitiéh, connecting 15 Irish food and drink suppliers with 17 members of Carrefour’s senior management and purchasing team.
O’Toole said, “Carrefour is the second-largest retailer in France and a global player with whom we plan to develop further partnership on areas of common strategic alignment, including sustainability. This is important, as we know from Bord Bia’s recent Global Sustainability Insight research that almost half of French consumers believe that more sustainably produced products are essential to their grocery choices.”
In Italy, Bord Bia is doing a takeover of public transport with quality-assured beef advertising campaigns, tailored to St Patrick’s Day, displayed across trams in Milan.
Bord Bia in the Netherlands is running a new ‘Cook Like an Irishman’ consumer campaign across digital platforms, showing how accessible and enjoyable cooking with Irish beef can be.
In Singapore, Bord Bia is organising two Irish beef butchery demonstrations for St Patrick’s Day, for foodservice customers from five-star hotels and Michelin-starred restaurants. Bord Bia’s co-funded EU campaigns are also running across Malaysia, the Philippines and Japan, under the banner ‘Sustainable European Dairy from Ireland’.
In South Korea, the Minister of State with responsibility for Research and Development, Farm Safety and New-Market Development, Martin Heydon TD, will visit Seoul to chair Bord Bia’s Meat Sector Roundtable discussion with high-potential beef and pork customers.
Trade Show Activity
In Japan, Bord Bia represented Ireland at the Foodex 2022 trade show in Tokyo, which is expected to deliver opportunities for Bord Bia clients across the priority sectors of meat, dairy, seafood and beverages. In the US, Bord Bia had an information stand at the Annual Meat Conference in Dallas, Texas, as part of its EU co-funded beef-and-lamb campaign in the US, launched in January.
Finally, Bord Bia is hosting Irish food and drink companies in Germany this month, at the Internorga trade fair for the hospitality and restaurant industry in Hamburg, from 10 to 14 March, and at wine-and-spirit trade show ProWein, in Düsseldorf, from 19 to 21 March. Both trade shows will attract in excess of 100,000 visitors.
Irish food and drink exports worldwide 2022
© 2023 Hospitality Ireland – your source for the latest industry news. Article by Dave Simpson. Click subscribe to sign up for the Hospitality Ireland print edition.
