Africa represents a big potential market for many American agricultural commodities, including meat. Matt Copeland is the Africa Representative for the U.S. Meat Export Federation and says his team is building relationships and looking for potential buyers of quality American meat products.
“The whole industry will benefit from more market access, and certainly, from an affordability point of view, some of the pallet choices in the West, in the USA, things like variety meats, both beef and pork, don’t necessarily find a home so easily there, and that product would normally be exported, and it’s like premium to the world markets and to China.”
USMEF held a trade seminar for potential African customers, and Copeland talks about what they accomplished at the event.
“We had 76 buyers in the room from 51 companies and 13 countries represented, so I can tell you the volume of tonnage that each of these companies procure every month is immense, and collectively, well over 100,000 tons of protein bought by these candidates monthly, so it’s nice to be able to facilitate through a bridge of trust, which is what USMEF provides into many markets. But now, here in Africa, we have some of our best and most capable, most incredible trading companies forward-facing to the African market. For some of them, it’s their first time visiting West Africa. Others have traded here for a long time but maybe haven’t met everyone here because they’ve been locked in a particular channel. They could meet the group. We could facilitate a number of B-to-B sessions. I think we had four in the end, speed-dating style.”
Copeland talks about which products buyers are looking for in Africa.
“They want to have experiences with the best steaks in the world. USDA Prime fits into that category. And then there’s the other side with people that are probably sub-economic, and they really don’t have options. And so, even our variety meats from the U.S. are far more consistent, and our supply chain is just far more wholesome from a food safety standards point of view than some of the others that we compete with here. You know, some of the consistency and things like Indian buffalo meats, I wouldn’t be too thrilled in terms of the variety meat space because there’s often contamination and problems. So, our food safety and in pork, beef, and lamb, it just offers them something that they know that they’re parting with dollars that they don’t have too many of, and they’re going to get an experience that is still very, very safe and very awesome for dinner.”
