Speaking at the global food and drink trade exhibition SIAL, in Paris, France, VanDrie Group’s corporate affairs advisor Marijke Everts revealed that the business was working with Chinese authorities to approve two of its Dutch slaughterhouses for export.
The business has set a long-term target of exporting offal to China, following its subsidiary Ekro becoming the first European veal slaughterhouse to export to the Asian country last week.
The deal was concluded after 17 years of negotiations between the Chinese Government and the Netherlands Food and Consumer Product Safety Authority for Dutch veal to enter China.
However, Everts is now establishing whether the Chinese have an appetite for Dutch offal.
“We are definitely looking for possibilities to export offal to China. This is, however, a long-term goal. We are not working on that yet. The Chinese authorities have now only audited one of our Dutch slaughterhouses (Ekro) and approved it for export,” Everts told GlobalMeatNews.
“We expect that our other two Dutch slaughterhouses (ESA and T Boer & Zn) will be approved within the coming months. The current covenant only allows boneless veal, both fresh and frozen. It will take a lot of time to adjust this covenant to be able to also export offal. We firstly will build on trust and getting our products more known in the Chinese market before we start negotiations on adjusting the covenant.”
Everts added that the business aimed to target China’s thriving foodservice industry in its largest cities, such as Beijing and Shanghai.
VanDrie exports its products to 60 other countries, with the traditional markets being in Germany, Italy and Belgium.
