Manufacturing beef from the UK can now be exported to the lucrative Canadian market after approval was given by inspectors.

Work involving the Agriculture & Horticulture Development Board (AHDB), Defra, the FSA, UK Export Certification Partnership (UKECP), Quality Meat Scotland and HCC Meat Promotion Wales, had been ongoing for a number of years before initial agreement was reached in 2015.

The agreement covered both primal cuts and manufacturing beef, but since then UK officials have been working to ensure manufacturing beef could be tested to the required microbiological standards required by the Canadian authorities.

This regime is now in place and has been robustly evaluated to UKAS standards, allowing shipments to begin immediately.

Dr Phil Hadley, AHDB International Market Development Director, said: “This is fantastic news and comes after a lot of hard work by all parties involved.

“We already have market access for sheepmeat into Canada and beef primals have been going over since 2015. To have reached a stage where we have all the testing in place to satisfy inspectors with regards to ecoli is brilliant.

“This is a great opportunity for processors and producers in the UK and is another outlet for our product, which in turn helps underpin farmgate prices.”

In 2016, Canada imported 147,000 tonnes of fresh and frozen beef. Of this, 55 per cent came from the US. The UK sent 412 tonnes of primal cuts.