On October 19th, 27th and November 2nd 2021, Bord Bia hosted three dairy focused virtual trade missions for customers across the South East Asia market. There has been increased appetite across Vietnam, Malaysia and Thailand for Irish cheese, powder and butter. Asia’s demand for these Irish exports is performing very well, with demand for Irish dairy products up 17% in volume compared to 2020.
2021 has been a difficult year for exports to the market due to Covid-19 restrictions but Bord Bia have identified South East Asia as a key emerging market for dairy and hopes to see better engagement with the market in 2022 and in the future.
Tara McCarthy, Ciaran Gallagher and Minister McConalogue presented to a large number of attendees, some of Bord Bia’s achievements in addition to introducing some of our clients to customers, and offering an opportunity for companies to interact. Concerns such as living with Covid-19, sustainability and health were addressed by our team to reassure our attendees of our resources and pans.
A total of 276 SE Asia participants from across SE Asia took part, mostly from the Vietnam, Malaysia and Thailand markets but with some additional attendees from Philippines, Indonesia, Singapore, Myanmar and as far away as Australia. In total 305 B2B meetings took place between these food industry leaders and the Irish dairy companies. In a post event buyer survey, over 97% of respondents who were not sourcing from Ireland stated they were ‘very likely’ or ‘quite likely’ to source Irish ingredients for the first time. Of those already sourcing, almost 90% stated they were ‘very likely’ or ‘quite likely’ to increase their volume of dairy ingredients sourced from Ireland. 100% of people said they were ‘very likely’ or ‘quite likely’ to research more about Irish dairy.
