One of Norway’s largest retail grocery store chains, NorgesGruppen, is arranging to import meat from Namibia because Norwegian cattle owners can’t supply enough beef. The Norwegian market faces a shortage estimated at around 17,000 tons this year.
The looming domestic beef shortage is tied to last year’s infamous butter shortage, which prompted dairy cattle owners to keep more calves and dairy cattle in milk production instead of sending them to the slaughterhouse. Newspaper Aftenposten reported Tuesday that state meat regulator Nortura, which controls the market in Norway, thinks the meat supply will stabilize when the butter supply does.
“There is a challenging meat situation in Norway right now,” Bård Gultvedt of NorgesGruppen told Aftenposten. He and others can import meat under quotas arranged through the EU. Around 3,200 tons can be imported from Namibia and Botswana.
newsinenglish.no staff
