Canada’s Agriculture Minister says the expansion of the Canada Brand Initiative to Germany will make it much easier for consumers to find Canadian agricultural products on German store shelves.
As part of an agricultural trade mission to Germany intended to grow opportunities for Canadian farmers federal agriculture minister Gerry Ritz announced yesterday a one million dollar investment to expand the Canada Brand initiative to include Germany.
Ritz says the initiative, part of Canada’s Economic Action Plan, will help promote Canadian products as a safe high quality choice and drive promotional activities such as retail and restaurant promotions for a wide range of Canadian products.
We’ve begun the initiative in the Japanese and Mexican markets.
It’s been quite successful there.
We’ve seen our exports of canola and some of the coarse grains go up.
We’ve also seen pork and beef added to it and doing quite well in the Japanese market.
The Mexican market, it’s more canary seed and some beef products and so forth but it certainly has paid off once we are able to identify those Canadian products on store shelves in those two countries.
We know we can get that same beneficial effect here in Germany.
I think the global recognition that Canada produces a safe quality food supply, a consistent food supply and once we put the Brand Canada label on the products on the store shelves through promotions, through advertising, through taste tests, as I said even culinary tourism which is quite big over here, Canadian products just walk off the shelves.
It’s amazing.
Ritz notes Canadian agriculture and food exports to Germany totaled nearly 210 million dollars in 2010 and this investment will help grocery shoppers in Germany find the great Canadian products our farmers grow and raise.
He says Germany is a priority market for the Canadian agriculture industry and this investment will boost the German appetite and raise consumer awareness of Canada’s safe, high quality food.
Source: Farmscape.Ca
