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U.S. works to regain lamb business in Taiwan

U.S. lamb producers are trying to regain access to international markets that are still closed because of issues related to the 2003 bovine spongiform encephalopathy case in Washington state. U.S. Meat Export Federation technical services manager Travis Arp says an especially attractive high-value market for U.S. lamb is Taiwan.

“The hotel and restaurant sector is going to be where a lot of the value for our lamb is and our higher quality cuts.  Obviously we can market high quality grain-fed lamb as we do with our beef,” said Arp, in an interview provided by the USMEF.  “That provides us an opportunity to really capture the higher value end of that with some of our middle meat cuts.”

An important step in regaining access is that a group of Taiwanese agricultural and health officials is in the U.S. evaluating lamb production and processing.

“They’re also going to meet with some experts in the lamb and sheep production industries to kind of get a better overview of the U.S. production model, the U.S. production system so they can really familiarize with what we do here in the United States and how we can provide them a really high quality and safe product,” he said.

Last year Taiwan imported more than 15,000 metric tons of lamb and mutton, worth about $60 million, from Australia and New Zealand.