Brexit is driving Irish ducks on Chinese dining table

World
Europe

Brexit may cost Ireland’s farms as much as six billion US dollars, according to a European Parliamentary impact report. Farmers there will have to worry about rising cost of doing business with the UK through tariffs, and currency pressures.

Irish farm industries currently has 40 percent of its exports going to the UK, so the government and businesses are testing new strategies to minimize the possible collateral damage by Brexit.

Irish duck producer Silver Hill Farm has businesses located both north and south of the country’s northern border. To cope with the changing situation, the company is selling Peking Duck to the Chinese.

Silver Hill produces 80,000 ducks a week, with plans to double that number within five years. It has 220 staff working from breeding and hatching to the table in London’s Chinatown. But the company can be extremely vulnerable to Brexit as it exports half of its products to the UK.

A farm worker doing duck breeding at Silver Hill Farm. / thetaste.ie

So the company plans to increase its share of the market further in the East.

“If we break into Southeast Asia first and then China beyond that, certainly it’ll make up for any blip in sales that is Brexit related,” said Micheal Briody, CEO of Silver Hill Farm.

The best solution, however, is for Ireland to still maintain close trade ties as much as possible with the UK. As what’s been said at Silver Hill – hope for the best, prepare for the worst.

“Moving into phase II (of Brexit negotiation), obviously we don’t know what our future relationship will look like. We as a country would like to see the closest possible relationship with the UK. They are our closest neighbor. In many of our industries, they are our closest trading partners,” said Irish Europe Minister Helen Mcentee.

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