U.S. Beef Exporters now have greater access to selling beef in Saudi Arabia due to the Saudi Food and Drug Authority’s announcement that participating in the Export Verification Program will no longer be required for importers. U.S. Meat Export Federation President and CEO Dan Halstrom explains how the removal of this barrier will impacts a growing foodservice market.
Halstrom said, “What we’re seeing here is a really large spending power, very young demographic, and a demographic that really depends on the food service segment. I would argue that it’s probably the fastest growing food segment in the world and has been for more than a decade. The bad news is that for the majority of that time, we’re not locked out of Saudi Arabia, but our access was very, very limited. So this recent announcement of simplifying the export process, eliminating the export verification program, and also allowing getting rid of some of the feed requirements in terms of the traceability of the feed, this will make it much easier and much more commercially viable for U.S. exporters to take advantage of the demand opportunities in Saudi.”
“It’ll take time to ramp up, but the fact that we have more access in terms of production that’s eligible for Saudi, very, very exciting for the U.S. industry. So big kudos to our USDA and the U.S. Trade Representative Office. This has not been an easy task,” said Halstrom.
Audio Reporting by Dale Sandlin for Southeast AgNet.