What we Do
Hybu Cig Cymru – Meat Promotion Wales (HCC) is the supply chain support system for livestock farming in Wales. HCC belongs to, and is led by, our industry stakeholders.
HCC is proudly dedicated to the continued success and development of our network of family farms and the promotion and marketing of Welsh Lamb, Welsh Beef and Porc from Wales.
A helping hand to boost returns
Premium Welsh red meat is the best in the world and HCC is determined it will stay in this global market-leading position. We will seize on any- and every- opportunity to help our stakeholders improve quality, increase cost-effectiveness and add value to Welsh red meat products.
Unwrapping new advances and transferring best practice
HCC is the industry’s “Knowledge House”. It undertakes ground-breaking research that prompts cutting-edge development interventions; supports and encourages specialist training; shares up-to-the-minute industry information, sustainability advocacy, in-depth data and regular briefings and forecasts- all to help safeguard the industry’s future.
Building brilliant Brands at home and abroad
HCC has invested carefully in our totemic brands during more than 20 years of development. Our emblematic brands signpost our traceable and sustainable premium products to consumers via our prestige UK and International retailers and quality foodservice companies. They embody the Welsh Way of farming and our sustainable processes- and extol them to the world.
Exporting Wales’ best
HCC has built a global marketing presence and, with the support of our stakeholders, opens doors to new export business, builds on a growing portfolio of established gains and strengthens our growing international B2B networks.
Communicating to our colleagues and our customers
Communication is the lifeblood of industry growth and HCC ensures that information regarding the industry’s good work is comprehensively conveyed to levypayers, stakeholders and consumers.
Protected Geographical Indication (PGI)
Frequently Asked Questions
HCC is the industry-led organisation responsible for the development, promotion and marketing of lamb, beef and pork from Wales. We work with Wales’ family farm network to help red meat producers increase returns and, with processors, retailers and foodservice operators, are active in developing many important markets at home and abroad.
HCC promotes Protected Geographical Indication (PGI) Welsh Lamb and Welsh Beef and acts as the guardians of the PGI scheme and the post-PGI UK-wide GI scheme.
HCC undertakes research, shares information and supports industry training with all parts of the supply chain, ensuring the Welsh red meat industry is in a position to improve quality, increase cost-effectiveness and add value to Welsh red meat products across the whole of our industry.
HCC’s core funding is from the Red Meat Levy, a charge payable by farmers and processors on every animal that enters the red meat food chain, which pools industry resources to market our totemic brands and further develop the supply chain collectively.
Its funding and functions compare closely to sister organisations AHDB in England and QMS in Scotland.
In recent years, HCC’s Red Meat Development Programme (RMDP) which consisted of three strategically important projects – Stoc+, the Hill Ram Scheme and Welsh Lamb Meat Quality – was funded through the Welsh Government Rural Communities – Rural Development Programme 2014-2020, in turn funded by the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development and the Welsh Government.
For more information on the RMDP, click here.
PGI Welsh Lamb and PGI Welsh Beef are iconic flagship products within Wales’s multi billion-pound food industry and are key products within the country’s £2.2 billion agriculture sector (Source: Welsh Government. Aggregate agricultural output and income, 2023. 02 July 2023)
PGI Welsh Lamb is sold in over 20 countries worldwide; around five per cent of our indigenous lamb production is consumed in Wales, with 55-60 per cent elsewhere in the UK, and 35-40 per cent exported overseas.
If you’d like to know more about the Welsh red meat sector, take a look at our Industry Statistics page.
