13 March 2017

3 minute read

Asia

Funding for USMEF’s efforts at the show, which attracted nearly 100,000 visitors from 165 countries, was provided by the USDA Market Access Programme, the Beef Checkoff Programme and the Beef Promotion and Research Council of Texas.

Held at the Dubai World Trade Centre, Gulfood 2017 included 120 national pavilions. Hundreds of international heads of state, ministers, government officials and representatives of food trade associations joined buyers and traders for updates on products, trends and sources in the world’s ever-expanding food market.

Now in its 22nd year, Gulfood has grown by leaps and bounds.

“Gulfood started out as more of a regional event, but it’s really evolved into a global food show,” said Dan Halstrom, USMEF senior vice president for marketing. “This year you had companies and buyers representing the Middle East, Europe, Russia, Africa, China, Japan, Korea and several Latin American countries.”

“The show continues to amaze us in terms of business opportunities for our Middle East beef business,” said Mark Spengler, export sales general manager for Greater Omaha Packing Company, which has attended Gulfood for several years.

“We very much appreciate the efforts of USMEF in terms of planning the event and were especially pleased with the new display location within Meat Hall 4, helping us reach out to more customers as we continue to strive for increased market penetration in the Middle East.”

US beef has long been considered a high-end, high-quality niche for most people in the Middle Eastern foodservice sector, but the market is changing, Halstrom noted.

“If you look at the family-style dining sector, we have become much more competitive and we are seeing the presence of US beef expand – not only in the United Arab Emirates, where this show was held, but also in countries like Oman, Kuwait and Bahrain,” explained Mr Halstrom.

“So we went into this year’s Gulfood looking at that segment as being a good opportunity for US beef to gain additional share of the market.”

An additional bright spot at this year’s Gulfood was the chance to enhance promotion of US beef to companies from Saudi Arabia, which at one time was a $31 million market. After four years of sitting on the sidelines, the US regained eligibility to ship beef to Saudi Arabia in 2016.

“A lot of discussion was had about Saudi Arabia and there is a lot of optimism,” said Mr Halstrom. “With a population of about 29 million people, there is definitely demand for high-quality grain-fed US beef.

"However, it has been a slow process to get beef slaughter plants approved for export to Saudi Arabia. The conditions for compliance are more restrictive, but hopefully we can work through that and see significant volumes start to move in 2017.”

TheCattleSite News Desk