Final week Kenny briefly lined the primary six months of beef commerce information that we’ve got for 2022. USDA will launch July’s commerce information this Thursday. I need to take a better take a look at U.S. beef exports forward of that launch. Particularly, what beef will we export? And, why will we export it?
The LMIC forecasts 2022 industrial cattle slaughter at 33.7 million head, down 0.4 p.c from 2021. Beef from 34 million head will go to certainly one of three locations: home retail, home meals service, and exports. Markets discover the best valued vacation spot for every beef product. Some beef merchandise are valued greater in different international locations than within the U.S., so they’re exported.
A basic instance when discussing beef exports is beef livers. Slaughtering 33.7 million head this 12 months means discovering a house for 33.7 million beef livers. I can inform you that we don’t eat that many beef livers within the U.S. As an alternative, we export the overwhelming majority of them. It seems that we ship roughly 75% of U.S. beef livers to Egypt. In 2021, the worth of beef liver exports to Egypt totaled 67.2 million {dollars}. That’s 67 million {dollars} to the U.S. beef business by exporting one beef product to at least one nation. Mixed, the export worth of beef selection meats totaled $1.08 billion in 2021.
Beef selection meats aren’t the one product that the U.S. exports. A beef carcass is fabricated into eight primal cuts. Many alternative particular person muscle cuts are derived from subprimal cuts. Exports assist discover a dwelling for every muscle minimize. For some muscle cuts, the choice to export is clear. For instance, 85% of beef quick rib is exported. On the opposite excessive, solely 3% of beef tenderloin is exported. For different beef cuts, there’s a tradeoff concerned with exporting: export complete muscle cuts or grind domestically as a supply of lean trim.
Deciding whether or not to export or grind a beef muscle minimize is a balancing act and dynamic course of influenced by a number of components. A straightforward strategy to illustrate this course of is to consider freezer beef operations. The typical client is unfamiliar with most beef objects on a freezer beef minimize sheet. As an alternative, shoppers would favor the steaks they’re accustomed to and extra floor beef. Particular person producers wouldn’t have entry to export markets, in order that they both should grind these unfamiliar muscle cuts or threat a client throwing them out. I’ve seen a number of freezer beef minimize sheets that embrace a field for shoppers to verify if they like a selected minimize be used for floor beef. There’s an export market the place these beef objects are valued extra as a complete muscle minimize.
Beef wholesalers have entry to export markets, to allow them to select whether or not to grind or export complete muscle cuts. Nothing goes to waste, and extra worth is created for your entire beef business. In 2021, beef and veal export worth totaled $9.5 billion. This worth was created by exporting roughly 11.3% of 2021 U.S. beef manufacturing, which totaled 26.973 billion kilos. This 12 months, cumulative year-to-date U.S. beef export worth totals $5.6 billion or $477 per head of fed cattle slaughter. This 12 months, roughly 23% of fed steer worth is attributed to beef exports.
Notice: Export statistics for particular person beef cuts are estimated by USMEF.
Supply: College of Arkansas, who’s solely accountable for the data supplied and is wholly owned by the supply. Informa Enterprise Media and all its subsidiaries aren’t accountable for any of the content material contained on this data asset.
