USMEF Meat Market Update

An update from the U.S. Meat Export Federation on a favorable meat market in 2023… USMEF President and CEO Dan Halstrom…

“Demand for beef and pork is, considering the higher prices on beef, hanging in there very well. And then on the pork side, we wish we could force some of those prices even higher because I think the demand is there globally. We had the third-largest year ever on pork last year. We had a record on beef, and that's with a lot of the Asian markets being hamstrung. Foodservice is still not back to normal. They call it 60-70 percent of normal in a lot of these Asian countries.”

“On the pork side, we're up 15 percent through the first quarter. We're pretty optimistic, especially given the European situation where they're shorter on supply at much higher pricing. Right now, our official forecast for the year is up eight percent on pork. Of course, we have a long way to go with nine more months for the year. On the beef side, we started down quite a bit in January and February, but you have to remember that a year ago, it was records. I mean through the roof, so we're comparing to a very high bar. March though came in 20,000 tons higher than both January and February, so we're very encouraged by that. Our forecast on the beef side - of course, production is going to be down five percent - but our forecast right now is down four percent.”