That's a very good question, and it's an idea that's definitely top of mind within the industry.
Your comments on China are bang on, quite frankly. I know of one cattle feeder in southern Alberta who has business partners in China. They're working to develop a new branded beef product based on Canadian Angus characteristics for high-end retail and high-end restaurants in China. Their goal, short term, is to ship from up to 10,000 head of beef annually into that market. That's just to start. The medium- to long-term goal is anywhere from 30,000 to 50,000 head annually.
The demand is certainly there; there's simply no question about that. The bigger issue is that it's difficult to supply. A number of things have to come into line. On our end, the beef value chain needs to align to prepare product for those markets. For example, some export markets do not like implants to be used. Certain production technologies are not allowed, so from the calf all the way up to processing there need to be systems of verification in play. The entire beef value chain needs to line up. That's an industry challenge for us, particularly when the country's biggest processors are essentially designed around the model of volume production. Processing capacity for these export markets and actually providing a specific product is a bit of a challenge.
On the processing side, another challenge is approval of various things in the logistics of it such as, for example, cold storage and those sorts of things. Those are all things that we need to do on our end. Investments in terms of expanding processing capacity and helping industry to align itself and produce these products are necessary.
Also, I think we need to do a lot more work on technical issues, the really detailed stuff around our regulations, to facilitate that trade. That's important as well.
Again, a lot of this also lands on the particular market we're exporting to. Sometimes there need to be changes there as well. There's a political dimension to it as well.