Hoengseong Hanwoo, a premium Korean beef brand, is entering Qatar after Malaysia and the United Arab Emirates, part of a plan to build "HANWOO" into a brand for Korean beef and expand consumption of Korean food abroad.
The Korea Trade-Investment Promotion Agency (KOTRA) said on the 19th that it held an event marking the first shipment of Hoengseong Hanwoo at The Meat Market in Doha on the 18th, local time, together with the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs, Hoengseong County and the South Korean Embassy in Qatar. About 30 officials attended, including Ambassador Hong Ji-pyo and officials from Qatar's Ministry of Public Health.
Qatar imports more than 80% of its red meat, leaving ample room for market growth. Beef imports nearly doubled in five years, rising to $180 million (240.1 billion won) in 2024 from $97 million (129.4 billion won) in 2019. High-income consumers and the country's luxury hotel and dining industries are also driving up demand for premium meat.
KOTRA had earlier planned a "Korean iftar" event in Doha on March 1, featuring Hoengseong Hanwoo as the main dish, as part of the 2026 agri-food market development program it runs jointly with the agriculture ministry. Iftar is the meal eaten after sunset during Ramadan. Hoengseong County sponsored 35 kilograms of sample products, which were brought in with regulatory approval. The event was canceled because of the war in the Middle East.
Despite the war, organizers signed a distribution agreement for Hoengseong Hanwoo with The Meat Market, Qatar's first premium butcher shop, on March 3. The sample products were used to provide tastings to potential corporate buyers including Qatar Airways' catering unit, and a tasting session was held at the ambassador's residence with heads of local distributors, in cooperation with the embassy.
Import rules were another hurdle. As a country that vaccinates against foot-and-mouth disease, South Korea had been barred from exporting beef to Qatar. To resolve this, KOTRA and the embassy began with a meeting with the food safety department of Qatar's Ministry of Public Health in April, then supported talks between the agriculture ministry and the health ministry on sanitary conditions and the format of quarantine certificates. They also corrected the name of a South Korean certification body that had been listed incorrectly among halal certifiers recognized by the health ministry. As a result, the ministry added South Korea in August to its list of countries approved to ship chilled and frozen boneless beef, and an initial shipment of 80.8 kilograms of hanwoo beef was exported on the 13th of this month.
KOTRA plans to hold the Korean Shopping Festival 2026 from the 22nd to the 24th, local time, with the agriculture ministry and three major Qatari retail chains including Carrefour and Monoprix. It will also run a stamp-collecting campaign at Korean restaurants and Korean grocery stores in Qatar through the end of the year, inviting the first participant to complete the course to a Hoengseong Hanwoo tasting.
The move into Qatar marks the third halal market for hanwoo exports, after Malaysia and the UAE. Hoengseong Hanwoo shipped to those countries is produced at Hoengseong KC, the only halal slaughterhouse in South Korea, certified by the Korea Muslim Federation and a Japanese halal certification body. KOTRA said it will continue to support government-to-government talks on exports of bone-in beef while gradually expanding sales to other Middle Eastern countries.
"This outcome came from companies, local governments and the central government running in the same direction without giving up," said Kim Jun-kyu, head of KOTRA's Middle East regional headquarters. "We will spare no support so that hanwoo can establish itself in the Middle East's premium meat market."