US Beef Soon Headed to Brazil

It has been 13 years since U.S. beef has been available in Brazil, but this could soon change. In August the two countries announced that they would resume trade for fresh and frozen beef cuts.

Brazil shipped small volumes of frozen beef to the United States in September, October and November – a combined total of about 500 metric tons – but U.S. exports to Brazil have yet to resume. This is due to additional regulatory obstacles but these steps are now nearing completion, and initial shipments of U.S. beef should reach Brazil in early 2017.

U.S. Meat Export Technical Services Manager Cheyenne pronounced mack-en-daff-urMcEndaffer says that while Brazil is one of the world's largest beef-producing and beef-exporting countries, there are definitely opportunities for certain U.S. beef cuts in the Brazilian market.

McEndaffer: "Even though Brazil does produced some finish some high quality British-bred cattle of their own. It is very, very limited. So that is where we see a opportunity to supplement that with high quality grain-finished U.S. beef. We do know that the picanha will be incredibly popular — that is the sirloin cap or coulotte which is the common name. The Brazilians like how much fat cover we have on our grain-finished coulottes. We are also expecting some demand for U.S. livers. Which is good because we are always looking for other liver markets. Over the past few months, we've also heard of interest of other cuts that we didn't initially expect like short ribs, chuck flaps, tri-tips, striploins, outside and inside skirts and chuck eye rolls."