The Spanish market - a perfect business hub for the German meat producers
German Meat will attend Alimentaria for the first time this year. What are your expectations from this trade fair?
Spain is developing more and more as a meat business hub. Within the last years it has successfully build up it`s meat industry – especially in the pork sector. Nevertheless, there was further room for exports from Germany. In 2017, the German meat businesses exported more than 80.000 tons worth €290,7 million to Spain. Which is an increase of more then 10% compared to 2016.
Poultry had the largest export share of all meat types with 30.621 tons, followed by beef with 25.000 tons and pork with nearly 18.000 tons. German sausages are also very popular in Spain. Totalling exports of 8.239 tons (€32,6 million) in 2017 it was one of the main export markets for the German meat processing industry.
Alimentaria with the dedicated Intercarn area seems to develop more and more as an import gathering of the meat industry. This is why we decided to attend the fair this year for the first time.
What is German Meat's promotion strategy for Alimentaria?
German Meat organized a group participation for different German companies in the meat sector. In our group participation 6 companies will present their products. High quality products, reliability and high technical and hygiene standards characterize the companies belonging to German Meat. The whole range of meat and meat products like beef, pork, poultry and processed meat products can be found on our booth in D 423 in hall 4 (Intercarn).
How does German Meat support the meat industry? What is the promotion strategy in the following years and what markets are you targeting?
German Meat offers a wide range of B2B services to the Germany meat exporting companies. These include market information like country- and product reports, B2B platforms like fairs and buyers meetings, business trips, seminars and PR activities. Regularly we are present in the main meat markets using well known platforms like ANUGA, SIAL China, Foodex Japan etc. and other trade fairs as framework/backbone of our worldwide program. In addition to this, we are exploring and developing our meat exports to other countries that are not on the list of the top export markets but seem to have a high future potential such as countries in Asia and Africa.
How was 2017 in terms of volume and turnover across all categories of meat produced in Germany?
In 2017 meat production by commercial slaughterhouses declined following a recent slight increase. As reported by the Federal Statistical Office (Destatis), meat production decreased by 2.0% compared to 2016 (-167 100 tons) to a total of 8.11 million tons.
With just under 57.9 million slaughtered animals in 2017, slaughterings of pigs fell by 2.6% (-1.5 million) compared to the previous year.
The number of slaughtered cattle also fell by 3.1% (-110,600 animals) compared with 2016 to 3.5 million. In summary, this means a slaughter volume of 1.12 million tons of beef produced, 2.3% (-26 100 tonnes) less than in the previous year. Slaughter of young cattle within the beef sector increased in 2017 by 5.2% to 38,900 animals.
Poultry meat production also decreased in 2017. Compared to the previous year, the amount of poultry produced decreased by 12,600 tonnes or 0.8% to just over 1.5 million tons. This is the second decline in poultry meat production in the last 10 years, in addition to 2015.
Which are Germany's main export destinations? What are the challenges encountered by meat producers on these markets?
Germany exported more than 3.95 million tons of meat and meat products all over the world last year. The largest contributors to this are pork and pork products with an export volume of 2.87 million tons, followed by poultry meat and preparations (674,000 tons) and beef and veal (380,000 tons).
Main export markets in 2017 were the Netherlands (570,000 tons) followed by Italy (434,000 tons) and China (349,000 tons), which is the biggest market outside the EU.
The EU countries still account for more than 75% of all meat exports from Germany, but exports to third countries are growing. Especially pork is exported to third countries. China, South Korea, the Philippines and Japan are the most important. For beef and poultry, Germany is still working on market access issues in main importing countries.
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