Canada Beef looks to explain nutritional benefits

Canada Beef, which markets and promotes the Canadian cattle and beef industry around the world, is using its presence at Gulfood 2015 to explain to the industry the nutritional benefits of the meat.

Robert Serapiglia, director of busines development and innovation at Canada Beef, spoke to HotelierMiddleEast.com about the organisation’s latest developments, and the state of Canadian beef in the region at the moment.

“We’re expanding our messaging from just brand awareness to nutrition,” he said. “We have our registered dietician attending [Gulfood], putting the focus on the nutritional powerhouse that beef is.

“Health and nutrition is always a focus, especially in a demographic that has an older population. Beef complements a nutritious diet very well and we are here to educate not only health professionals, but the industry also on what those healthy attributes are.”

Serapiglia also detailed how the producers from Canada were continuing to focus on supplying premium beef to the region.

“The focus is on premium retail and premium foodservice,” he said. “It’s strategically focused [on markets] which are not price sensitive. Canadian product is world class, it’s grain finished, well-marbled, very flavourful and tender.

“It’s definitely not a least-cost product. We have expensive production systems, there is the freight logistics, so it is very niche-specific.”

Canada Beef has been active in the region at trade shows and with its branding series over the last five years, and Serpaiglia explained how demands were evolving to secondary cuts, suh as hind cuts and shoulder cuts.

“The demand is for aged, grain-finished, well-marbled product. Middle meats [loin and rib cuts] sell all the time.

“We’ve seen an increase in trade of complete carcasses, we’ve seen the market start to diversify in what it offers. We see premium gourmet burger opportunities come out of this growing demand; we also see alternative steak opportunities.”