LONDON – Great Britain and China have agreed to a pork export deal worth £50 million (US$79.1 million), according to Britain’s Agriculture Minister Jim Paice, who is traveling in China on a trade mission.

Most of the pork exports will be offal, feet, ears and other hog parts that have little demand among British diners, but are very popular among the Chinese, according to UK’s Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA).

"China is the most lucrative grocery market in the world and from fashion to food its rapidly expanding middle class has an appetite for Western goods,” Paice said. “In particular they are eating more meat, and our top quality producers have got huge opportunities to meet that demand and help our economic recovery.”

Paice also plans to promote British agriculture by offering high-quality breeding pigs to China and the skill and technologies that support breeding programs in the UK. Breeding technology and skill have the potential to be even more lucrative than the breeding pigs, according to DEFRA. The agency said there are many opportunities for growth in emerging markets such as China due in part to the rising affluence of China’s growing middle class. Middle class consumers in China are increasingly buying foreign food and drink perceiving it aspirational and of high quality.