Supplies of beef from non-EU countries, including Argentina or Brazil, may enter the EU and be sold legally anywhere on the EU market. This beef can be imported into the EU on payment of EU tariffs or under certain agreed preferential quotas operated under the WTO. A condition of entry to the EU is that the beef must meet all EU veterinary and hygiene standards. Although Ireland exports more than 90% of its beef production, quantities of third country beef have been imported into Ireland under these arrangements. These imports have been largely used for further processing, the bulk of which is then re-exported. A small quantity of imported beef is also used in the catering trade.
EU regulations on beef labelling require operators involved in the marketing of beef to label their beef with a reference number to permit traceability to the animal or group of animals from which the beef was derived, details of the slaughterhouse and the de-boning hall and details of the origin of the animal. With regard to beef imported into the EU, for which not all of this information is available, operators marketing that beef are required, at a minimum, to label its origin as non-EC and to indicate the country of slaughter.
While these regulations require that beef sold to the catering trade must be labelled so as to provide the caterer with the necessary information to assure traceability there is, however, no obligation under these regulations for caterers themselves to forward that information to their customers. In the absence of such an obligation, Bord Bia has introduced its Féile Bia initiative, which I fully support, where participating restaurants, hotels, etc, agree to indicate the source of the food they serve so that all consumers, whether they purchase beef in retail or catering establishments, are fully aware of the origin of the product. I believe that this initiative deserves the fullest possible participation. While I am not aware of any instances where third country imported beef has been illegally labelled as Irish, it is clear that there is sufficient quantity of top quality Irish beef available to fully supply the Irish catering sector.