Fresh lamb for Ramadan
17 July 2019
Australia’s ability to place lamb on tables in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region within days of it leaving the farm is resonating with an enormous market for whom ‘fresh is king’. Throw in Australia’s position as a trusted supplier of safe, consistently high quality, Halal red meat in the region and it’s a recipe for even more growth in what was already our highest value sheepmeat export region in 2018.
With those attributes at the forefront, Meat & Livestock Australia (MLA) developed marketing campaigns in the lead-up to Ramadan, the biggest sales period for Australian lamb in the region, which reached more than 43 million television viewers across ten countries.
Ramadan, from May 6, is a major religious festival where Muslims fast through daylight hours, have evening prayer and then break the fast with Iftar. This big meal is about sharing, family and traditional Arabic meals in which lamb features prominently.
MLA International Business Manager for MENA Nick Meara said of the chilled sheepmeat imported into the region in 2018, 64% was Australian.
Alongside the television advertisement showing an Australian producer on his farm handing lamb up to celebrity chef Tarek Ibrahim in a Middle Eastern kitchen, MLA’s campaign featured a strong social media component. “This is a region where mobile phone use and social media is extremely high,” Nick said. The social media reach exceeded 4 million, with google ads notching up over 1 million impressions and website views during the campaign sitting at just under 80,000.
“The aim was to have Australian lamb front and centre of the consumer’s mind when they are shopping for Ramadan,” Nick said. “Market insights have shown the importance of freshness in meat purchasing, so the focus was on the freshness of Australian lamb. We are 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.” Last year, 61% of Australia’s sheepmeat exports to MENA were chilled compared to 15% across all other markets.
It was also important to build awareness that Australia has one of the most comprehensive and trusted Halal systems of any supplying country, Nick said. MLA has developed a Halal website where people can find out more about it.
“In the lead-up to Ramadan we also did some work with one of the high-profile television food networks, where we had local Arabic female chefs cooking their favourite Ramadan traditional great tasting recipes and explaining why they prefer Australian lamb. They said it’s fresh, it’s good quality, ticks the food safety box and, very importantly, they trust our Halal system,” Nick said.
