Portuguese Produce Unavailable on British Supermarkets

APPA NEWS, LONDON - UK - A market review conducted by AIMP has revealed a shocking reality. Portuguese products do not reach British markets and the very few that make it to Britain’s shores are either mainstream turism produce or Port wines.

AIMP-PMIA [Portuguese Monarchist International Alliance], which has been monitoring food and drink markets in the United Kingdom for six months has concluded that key areas of the Portuguese Economy, such as traditional high end quality food and drink produce is not exported to the United Kingdom at rates capable of competing with Spanish, Italian and Greek produce.

Shocking as it may seem and in sharp contrast to what happens with Greek, Italian and above all Spanish produce, all selling millions of pounds worth of products in Britain, Serra cheeses, Azores “Ilha” cheeses, Azeitão cheeses, “Pata Negra” hams and most high quality red and white wines are nowhere to be found in any of the major supermarket networks, among them Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Morrison’s, ASDA and Marks & Spencer. The same can safely be said of Madeira wines, for example, despite the well known fact that Madeira produces excellent table wines, but most Madeira found in Britain is marketed as cooking wine.

Another markedly shocking area concerns marketing of Olive Oil, a product not very popular in Britain just 15 years ago, but has enjoyed a huge boom to the point where no British household would consider cooking without it. Again, all olive oil available is either Spanish, Greek, Italian or even Turkish. Portugal, known as it is for producing some of the best olive oil in the world, quite simply does not export it.

The situation is all the more shocking because Portuguese produce is generally far superior to the competition, but as it stands, it allows Spanish, Greek and Italian producers to pocket millions of pounds in profit, as traditional products sell extremely well and are very popular among the British people, accostumed to enjoy them at holiday resorts and once back home, look out for them in the supermarkets.

The report, which is expected to be available in the first quarter 2009, presents an overall poor picture, showing that none of the British major supermarket networks - worth many thousands of sales outlets across Britain - carry important and high quality Portuguese produce, apart from Mateus Rosé wines, a couple of “Vinho Verde” (most labeled Gazela and unlabelled), several Port wines, mostly Ruby class and Tawny and very few fresh vegetables.