Bridging the trade gap: Importer Feedback for meat exporters

Livestock play a significant role in Ethiopia’s national development. It provides livelihoods, jobs and nutrition. However, livestock production and productivity in Ethiopia remains low. The key challenges reported and observed in Ethiopia are limited marketable supply, seasonality of demand, stringent sanitary requirements, stringent halal requirement and repeated Annual audit from United Arab Emirates, High Halal Certificate Cost from Saudi Arabia, cold chain infrastructure, limited knowledge and skill on value addition, market promotion and linkage; frequent drought, inadequate livestock identification and traceability system application. We must stop measuring success by the heads of sheep and goat, cattle and camel we have and focus on the yield, quality and safety of the meat the market demand.

The Ethiopian export volume in 2025 was 22620 tons. Of the 22,620 tons, 94% was sheep and goat carcasses, 4% and 2 % were from beef and camel meat respectively. The beef and camel meat export data shows that more attention should be given to increase production, productivity and quality and improve competitiveness. Demand for animal-sourced foods is rising faster than supply for meat and other livestock products.  The food deficits will increase over time unless significant advances are made in the areas of animal feed, health and genetics and proper policies are updated and enforced. Moreover, proper investment, coordination of stakeholders and documentation and sharing of good practices are useful to improve competitiveness and trade performance.

The average meat per capita consumption of Emirates is 67kg and over 85% of this meat is imported. Regarding Saudi Arabia, the average per capita meat consumption is 55kg. The projected red meat market for United Arab Emirates (UAE) is 1 billion USD by 2033 while for Saudi Arabia reaches 6 Billion USD by 2032. Other potential markets for Ethiopia to benefit with enhanced halal and sanitary compliance and value addition includes China, Malaysia, Indonesia, EU markets, among others.

The below feedback on Ethiopian exported meat were collected from importers based in the GULF countries (mainly Saudi and Emirates) during the B2B meeting organized in Dubai 2025. These feedbacks are useful for the exporters to do the necessary adjustment in their operations for the GULF market and will result in improved trust, expansion of the existing volume and even help to attract new buyers in the GULF and beyond. The article is contributed to newspaper to stimulate policy and public debate.

Exporters, carcass and quality issues:

Supply and price issues

Innovations on value addition

Conclusion & recommendations: The following are some key recommendations for Ethiopian exporters to consider.