America?s beef exports will set a record in 2022 as sales totals are expected to reach $12 billion when all shipments are tallied. While demand growth in China played a significant part, U.S. Meat Export Federation President and CEO Dan Halstrom said the U.S. beef industry has seen widespread growth in global demand.
?Our record growth in 2022 and 2021 was the result of broad-based growth,? Halstrom said. ?It’s not any one market. Granted, we saw extreme growth in China in three years, which is a good $2 billion market, but it’s not just China. We have growth in Korea. Korea has been amazing. We have growth in places like the Philippines, Vietnam, and Colombia. So, the broad-based growth, not overly reliant on any one market, has been a key. And that’s with the food service in Asia for most of 2022 crippled due to COVID. So, that would be a good example of where I think there’s a tailwind coming into 2023 where, with food service in Asia, we might see some pretty spectacular things.?
Pork exports, meanwhile, have shown an expected rebound in the second half of the year, but will fall short of the records set in 2020 and 2021, which were driven in part by African swine fever in China. Halstrom said the good news is pork exports came on strong late in 2022 and look positioned for growth in the new year.
?If you all remember 2020 at the height of African Swine Fever in China, we set all kinds of records, but it was mainly China,? Halstrom said. ?And we’ve now seen extremely good diversification on the pork side as well. And while Mexico had a big year in 2022 and is a very good partner, we’ve seen very good growth in Korea. We’ve seen very good growth in places like Colombia, Peru, Central America, and the Philippines. So once again, having a diversified portfolio with a lot of different options marketwise has been a key.?
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