Australian lamb has cemented its place in Ramadan feasts in the Middle East and North Africa, with Meat and Livestock Australia determined to grow the market share even further, especially during the current Season of Hajj Pilgrimage to Mecca.
Farm to table freshness is resonating with the region’s markets, along with Australia’s position as a trusted supplier of safe, consistently high quality, halal red meat.
With the MENA area the highest value sheepmeat export region in 2018, MLA has over the last two years been running targeted marketing campaigns in the lead-up to Ramadan, the biggest sales period for Australian lamb in the region.
Market insights have shown the importance of freshness in meat purchasing, so the focus was on the freshness of Australian lamb.
Australia is currently seeing an airfreight sheepmeat boom to MENA as it allows Australia to logistically supply large volumes of chilled product within strict shelf-life thresholds. The campaign ran this year for the two weeks prior to the start of Ramadan as well as during the first two weeks of Ramadan.
Anecdotal feedback from retailers throughout the region was that Ramadan sales were quite good in general, considering a rather flat year for retail so far.
Total lamb sales to the ten main MENA countries for 2018 was 73,526 million tonnes, and the first six months of 2019 was 36,956mt.
Last year, 61pc of Australia’s sheepmeat exports to MENA were chilled compared to 15pc across all other markets. The ten main MENA markets are the six Gulf Cooperation Council countries of Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, as well as Egypt, Iran, Jordan and Lebanon.
Australia’s export volumes of higher value cuts to those same markets have increased, pointing to growing demand at the higher end of the market, particularly in Gulf Cooperation Council countries.
