Business, Commerce

Peruvians Get a Taste of Kangaroo

Austrade - Kangaroo meat in Wong
Australian ambassador Nicholas MacCaffrey, center, with Cencosud executives and staff at one of the top Wong supermarkets.

Peruvian gourmands will be able to add kangaroo meat to their shopping list, with the launching this month of sales of kangaroo sirloin, striploin and rump at some Wong supermarkets in Lima.

Australian ambassador Nicholas McCaffrey, together with Enrique Ameghino and Ignacio Elías of Cencosud, celebrated the arrival of the first shipment of  kangaroo meat earlier this month, the result of several years of negotiations between the Australian Department of Agriculture and Forestry  and Peru’s agricultural health certification service, Senasa.

Peru is the only country in Latin America to have the approved protocols for importing this meat from Australia.

“Austrade, the embassy’s commercial office, has been supervising the negotiations between DAF and Senasa, and working closely with Cencosud on the potential of this Australian gourmet product for almost five years, so it is very gratifying to finally see it on the Cencosud shelves,” said Daniel Havas, Australian commercial attaché.

Cencosud, which owns the Wong and Metro supermarket chains, has selected Wong markets in high-end areas for this product.

The Kangaroo Industry Association of Australia does not expect the Peru market to be sufficiently large to meet its growth needs but the industry is looking for new markets and Peru is a start, and a first in the region.

Kangaroos are a protected species but the Australian government has authorized strict culling quotas to maintain the size of the population under control.

The marsupials grow in the wild, and they produce less methane than sheep or cows.   The meat is organic, low in saturated fats and high in iron content.

And it also comes with a high price tag — 94.20 soles a kilo for striploin and 72.90 for rump.

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