Location:
Uruguay is in the "South American Pampas", on the Atlantic Ocean coastline, between Argentina and Brazil.

It´s entry to Mercosur, the world´s fourth most important block economy. In particular, in the meat sector, Mercosur has the largest livestock population in the world.

The Organization of American States was created in Uruguay and it is where the Uruguay Round Agreements of WTO began.

Uruguayan people, their culture and customs have been strongly influenced by European inmigrants.

Demographic and sociological indicators are similar to those of developed countries.

Uruguay is 6th inte top World Environmental Ranking, which considers 142 countries (Source: Yale University - University of Columbia, 2001)

Uruguay´s hydrographics system of clear superficial and underground water is considered one of the largest clean water supplies in the world.

Uruguay is one of the mail exporters of beef and sheep meat and has one of the highest indexes of domestic consumption.

Our production system is based on native pastures and characterized by mixed grazing of cattle and sheep, in the open, all year round, without confinement and in total environmental harmony.

Each animal has an area of pastures of 15.000 sq meters.
They are fed only on vegetable proteins, without products or by products of animal origin.
The use of growth hormones is prohibited by law.
Uruguay is internationally recognized as a country free of BSE.

Good Manufacturig Practice Programmes (GMP).
Sanitation Standar Operating Precedures (SSOP).
Hazard Analysis an Critical Control Points Programmes (HACCP).
Traceability which allows to identify the origin of the product at any time during the process.
Environmental care through an appropiate treatment of residual waters.

Traceability exists all along the productive process. The size of the country (maximum distance 412 miles) facilitates the traceability control, since the animal are born until the final product obtained, supported by the new National Livestock Identification System (SNIG).

-------------------------- URUGUAYAN MEAT = CONFIDENCE ---------------------------------

Free-range
Grass-fed
No hormones used
No antibiotics used
No animal protein in feed

Beef from Uruguay is definitely lean because animals are grass-fed. Research by the University o Georgia Showed that Uruguayan grass-fed beef has low levels of fat, and high % of "good" fats such as cholesterol reducing mono and polyunsaturated fatty acids, Omega 3 and neutral saturated fatty acids. More so, CLA contents are also high (Realini et al.,2003).

Uruguayan meat complies with 3 conditions which are not easy to find in one single product:
Safe
Healthy
Delicious

Uruguay, one of the newest players on the world beef scene, is positioning itself as a major competitor to U.S. beef in the first decade of the 21st century.

Uruguay was quick to remove itself from the list of countries banned from beef exports because of foot-and-mouth disease (FMD).

Like Argentina, Uruguayan producers have made major strides in ridding its borders of this FMD disease and the USDA recognized the country as FMD-free in 1995.

Uruguay has also won concessions through the Uruguay Round of GATT talks that ended in December 1993. The country gained access to the U.S. market with a quota of 20,000 tons of beef. Most of the beef has been for manufacturing, but Uruguayan cattlemen hope to begin developing U.S. high quality markets for its beef products.

Uruguay can produce very good quality beef at a very low cost and enter new markets like the US high quality or Premium markets.