MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Uruguay brand beef shipped directly to EU consumers

By the end of the year Uruguay will be shipping beef directly to European Union consumers. The locally packed presentations will have all the traceability information plus the brand name with all the consumer data the supermarket wishes or has to comply with.

The announcement was made by Ricardo Robaina Deputy head of Technical Services at Uruguay's National Meat Institute, INAC, during a conference on food quality in Montevideo. "The approval and certification process by the EU has been much faster than we expected", admitted Robaina, who added Uruguay is the first Mercosur member country to achieve such direct access to EU consumers. Currently Uruguayan prime beef cuts are shipped in boxes to a local distributor in the EU with all the needed information in an external sticker. However with the new system each retail package is prepared to be stocked directly in the supermarket stands according to retailer instructions and with EU certification. Robaina said this was an excellent chance to reach consumers with the Uruguay beef brand and couples with the current INAC global campaign to identify the Uruguayan produce in the world's leading markets. One of the main competitions Uruguay faces is from Argentina which has an imposed brand name in quality beef and most often the Uruguayan product is sold by EU retailers as Argentine beef for the extra edge. With this in mind Uruguay is sponsoring beef restaurants in Spain specializing in barbeque, where different meats and offal is cooked in River Plate style.