AMA Marketing wants to convince more farmers and food processors of the voluntary seal of approval additional modules – including “More animal welfare”, “Regional origin” and “Rare breeds”. One will “strengthen the modules”, said AMA marketing boss Michael Blass on Thursday at an online event.
Agricultural products with the AMA seal of approval are “affordable for consumers” and the requirements are “manageable for farmers and agriculture,” said Blass. Meat only gets a red-white-red AMA seal of approval in the supermarket or butcher if the animals were born, fattened, slaughtered and cut up in Austria. The seal is only given for milk and dairy products if the animals live on local farms and are milked there and the products have been processed in an Austrian dairy. Similar requirements apply to eggs. Fruit, vegetables and potatoes with the AMA seal of approval are only grown in local fields, in orchards and glass houses.
The “AMA Genuss Region” seal of approval is also to be promoted. AMA marketing boss Blass sees “a huge potential in culinary art”. This is also important for tourism advertising. At the beginning of 2019, the Ministry of Agriculture commissioned AMA Marketing to manage the “Genuss Region Österreich” brand itself as part of the Culinary Network. There was a brand dispute between Agrarmarkt Austria Marketing and the Genuss Region Österreich association in 2019.
The corona crisis caused domestic agricultural and food exports to rise by 4 percent in the first half of the year. In contrast, imports increased only slightly. Above all, strong demand for Austrian products in Germany – including dairy products, fruit, grain, flour and baked goods – contributed to the increase in exports. For the second half of the year, food processors expect weaker export demand in some cases, partly due to the renewed lockdown in Europe. Current figures are not yet available.
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