Turkey is the top destination for Bulgarian beef
At the beginning of 2025, the Ministry of Agriculture's (MA) summarized beef statistics reported a new market situation in the sector in terms of exports over the past year.
According to data from the National Statistical Institute and calculations by the Ministry of Agriculture, in the period January - September 2024, the export of Bulgarian beef marked an impressive increase compared to the same period in 2023.
Total exported quantities amounted to 9,176.4 tons (206% growth) compared to 2,995.1 tons at the same time the previous year and 6,040.1 tons exported for the whole of 2023.
The reason for the impressive growth turns out to be due to an open new market to Turkey . In the first two years of the research period (2021 and 2022), no export to our southern neighbor was mentioned at all. In 2023, statistics show 5,758.9 tons of beef exported to Turkey, and for the first 9 months of 2024 alone, this export already reaches 9,005.9 tons. These quantities represent over 98% of all beef exports from Bulgaria.
Exports to almost all destinations mentioned in the table are declining. There is also a more pronounced increase in exports to the United Kingdom in January-September 2024, but it is still only 21 tons. The amount of beef exported to the entire European Union during this period is 94.8 tons.
At the same time, beef imports into the country are also growing. By September 2024, they reached 6,285.1 tons, 971.1 tons more than the same period in 2023. However, a look back shows that for the whole of 2021, the quantities imported into our country were 9,613.1 and in the next two years they decreased by about 2,000 tons. The leading imports are from Poland, Italy and the Netherlands.
Regarding prices, Bulgaria is at the back of the EU member states with values below the Union average. As of January 5, 2025, the prices of classified beef (cattle category D - O3) were lowest in Greece and highest in Sweden.
In Bulgaria, as of this date, the purchase price of fattened calves (live weight) is 4.81 BGN/kg excluding VAT, which is an 8.8% increase on an annual basis. The wholesale price of veal carcass meat is 14.83 BGN/kg including VAT – also higher than last year. Since 2022, prices for both live weight and carcass meat, as well as retail, have been moving upwards, according to SAPI statistics.
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