Meat from Romania promoted in an overseas campaign

The scandal of horsemeat wrongly labelled as beef determined representatives of food industry to launch a campaign in favour Romanian meat industry.

The message of the campaign, "We love meat from Romania", will be distributed across various media all through the year 2013.

Following the scandal of horsemeat wrongly labelled as beef, and until the problem was solved, many Romanian abattoirs were stopped from exporting beef to EU countries, said Mihai Vişan, executive CEO of the Romanian Meat Association (ARC), in an interview on "Apelul Matinal" programme at Radio România Actualităţi.

"We are totally clean in this scandal and we have to be confident, feeling that we came out of this situation in a much better position, as the entire Europe saw that we were able to successfully manage the situation", said Mr. Vişan.

The campaign "We love meat from Romania" intends that all the population, consumers and of course authorities notice the positive trend of the meat industry, Mr. Vişan added in his interview, and he went on to explain: "For the last three or four years, industrial meat production has increased almost constantly and we have become sellers, not only buyers as we were up to now and, as I represent the Meat Processing Association, I can say that Romania managed to keep a positive balance of cold meats, I mean we have bought less from abroad and sold more in the past few years. We will use every occasion to transmit this message on behalf of our campaign. On the other hand, we are thinking of putting on advertising campaigns in proportion to the funds we will manage to raise", said the CEO of the Romanian Meat Association.

Pork represents over half of Romania’s meat consumption

Romania is becoming a key-player on the European meat market, ranging 7th or 8th among 27 European countries in terms of dimension and livestock.

According to data, pork represents over half of Romania’s meat consumption, with chicken consumption increasing fast, as in most European countries.

"These two kinds of meat cover up to three quarters of Romania’s consumption", said Mr. Vişan.

The National Statistics Institute in Romania suggests that the meat consumption is up to 60 kg per capita per year.

The economic crisis triggered a decrease of meat consumption and now it is up to 56-57 kg per capita, according to Mr. Vişan.

On the other hand, poultry export has grown and now has a positive balance, with cold meats and beef exports also on a positive trend, highlights Mr. Vişan in his interview at "Apelul Matinal".

"We have never had it so good on cold meat exports, I mean we export more than we import. In the case of beef, we have also a positive balance, mostly because, I need hardly say, the environmental conditions in Romania are almost ideal in comparison with many other European countries, said Mr. Vişan.

Translated by Magda Baciu