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U.S. Beef Master Classes in Poland Capitalize on Growing Consumer Interest

Published: Aug 29, 2017
00:00 / 00:00

You may download the audio file here




Although Poland has traditionally been a pork-eating country, its 40 million people are enjoying a growing economy and consumers have demonstrated an interest in high-quality beef and specialty meats. Seeing this opportunity, USMEF is re-introducing U.S. beef to the market, recently holding a series of U.S. beef master classes in Warsaw, Krakow and Gdynia, a popular port city on the Baltic coast.

Cheyenne McEndaffer, U.S. Meat Export Federation (USMEF) technical services manager, teamed with USMEF Representative Yuri Barutkin to conduct the classes, which included demonstrations of alternative and premium U.S. beef cuts, as well as overviews of U.S. beef’s competitive advantages and attributes.

The effort to increase U.S. beef exports to Poland does not come without challenges and restrictions. The country is a member of the European Union, which means that any U.S. beef that goes there must be hormone-free. This gives added importance to the promotion of alternative cuts, so that exporters can derive as much value as possible from EU-eligible cattle.


TRANSCRIPT:

Ralph Loos: The U.S. Meat Export Federation recently conducted a U.S. beef master class in Poland. USMEF Regional Representative Yuri Barutkin and Technical Services Manager Cheyenne McEndaffer presented the class. In this USMEF report, McEndaffer details the class and explains the approach for U.S. beef in Poland.

Cheyenne McEndaffer: The purpose of the beef master classes is to bring in chefs who already work with beef buy may not be familiar with U.S. beef and to highlight cuts that they have probably never worked with before. We always end on the classic ribeye, so everyone can sample that, but we also look at other cuts that offer value to them but probably at a cheaper price. These would be cuts from the chuck, sirloin or round. We not only emphasize the cooking attributes of these various cuts but also show them how to break down the bigger cuts like the chuck roll. The goal of these seminars is to help our importers and distributors move the lesser-known or lesser-valued cuts. Within the market. So there’s always no problems to sell the higher end middle meats, obviously at a premium, but we’d like to see some of these other cuts, like from the chuck and the round, have new homes and new value opportunities.

Ralph Loos: McEndaffer notes that Poland is a beef-producing country, but USMEF see opportunity in providing U.S. beef as a high-quality alternative.

Cheyenne McEndaffer: Traditionally, Poland is not a big beef eating country. But they produce a lot of very high quality beef themselves, so the consumers are familiar with it, so even though most Polish beef is exported elsewhere, they are familiar with high quality beef and marbled beef, so we’d really like to emphasize that U.S. beef fits well into high-end foodservice, as well as retail applications for their uses.

Ralph Loos: For more information, please visit USMEF.org. For the U.S. Meat Export Federation, I’m Ralph Loos.