Pictured: Matt Copeland speaks at Africa Trade Seminar. Image courtesy of USMEF
The U.S. Meat Export Federation hosted a two-day trade seminar in Accra, Ghana. It brought together about 30 U.S. red meat exporters with 76 buyers from 12 African nations.
It was the first-ever USMEF seminar in Ghana. President and CEO Dan Halstrom says Africa is critical to the U.S. industry’s efforts to expand and diversify global markets.
“That’s one of our core missions, is to bring buyers and sellers together, especially in these emerging markets,” he says. “It’s time to take the next step and get aggressive and really tell our story in these countries.”
According to USMEF Africa Representative Matt Copeland, the centerpiece of the event was face-to-face meetings between the buyers and exporters.
“We have this emerging middle class… one of the first things they do as they emerge is they want to spend money on a better experience,” Copeland explains. “So we’re going to take advantage of that wave.”
Robert Preska of trading company Lamex says those meetings generated productive leads.
“I’ve been working Africa for 15 years, and I have met nine people today who are established businesses in Senegal, in Ivory Coast, who I had not met before,” Preska says. “At these meetings, we have several people in high-end restaurants who are interested in high-quality beef to put on the plate, and we’re really trying to work to get some air samples over… in a few months, we could be talking about moving some containers of primal cuts over here.”
