MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Uruguayan organic beef at Shanghai’s world expo next year

Breeders & Packers is the latest incorporation to Uruguay’s meat industry

Uruguayan organic beef directly from the country’s natural pastures will be available at a restaurant catered by Uruguayans at the Shanghai World Expo next year.

The restaurant will be managed by the country’s National Meats Institute, INAC and will open to the public from May first to the end of October 2010. An estimated 70 million people will be visiting the Shanghai grounds, according to the expo organizers.

“This will be an excellent opportunity to promote Uruguayan beef in Asia, which has potentially very interesting markets”, said Luis Fratti president of INAC. He added Uruguay already has working contacts with China and South Korea, and “we also have a very successful experience with restaurants in international shows, such was the case in Zaragoza, Spain (2008) and in Portugal this year”.

“The restaurants worked packed full with long waiting lists and Uruguayan organic beef, and the barbecue were a real hit” said Fratti.

However Roberto Palma president of the UK company Breeders & Packers suggested Uruguay should be more ambitious and definitively impose local beef as the world’s prime beef.

“Uruguayan beef has the challenge of being recognized in the world above Argentine beef and to achieve this we need a greater consistency in the quality. This means bettering the average cattle”, said Palma.

He also recommended that Uruguay continue to modernize the meat industry, a process which begun several years ago and anticipated that the presence of Breeders & Packers will contribute to significantly advance the whole process: from the farm to the meat boutiques.

UK group Breeders & Packers has been the major investment (80 million US dollars) in Uruguay’s meat industry in decades having acquired several farms and is in the process of building a state of the art abattoir to export directly to UK with its own brands.