Global food inflation creates opportunity, says Brazil meat lobbyist
JBS and BRF can increase supply, exports, ABPA said
29 July 2022
2 minute read
By: Rising food prices are benefiting meat companies in Brazil, as trade barriers are being lifted and domestic suppliers continue to have relative ease of access to grains used as livestock feed, reported Reuters, citing meat lobby ABPA on Thursday.
Ricardo Santin, ABPA president, celebrated that Brazil was recently authorized to export pork to Canada, and added it aims to sell more types of pork cuts to South Korea, Japan and Chile pending talks with these nations to remove certain sanitary barriers.
"A lot of large global (meat) suppliers are not sure where they will get grains from and at what prices," Santin noted, alluding to the effects of the war in Ukraine, which disrupted global grain trade flows and natural gas supplies into Europe from Russia.
Santin said Brazilian meat processors like BRF and JBS can increase supplies and export more meat to the Middle East and Asia.
He said even though China has bought less pork overall this year, that country will continue to import around 3 million tonnes per year -- more than twice than before the outbreak of African swine fever in 2018.
ABPA projected Brazil will grow poultry output by up to 1% this year and by up to 4.5% in the next. That means national chicken output could reach 15 million tonnes in 2023.
Brazil, the world's biggest chicken supplier, ships about a third of production abroad, Santin said.
For pork, Brazilian companies are poised to increase output by up to 5% this year and by up to 3% in the next.
If confirmed, Brazil's pork production would be 5.1 million tonnes in 2023. Brazil accounts for almost 11% of global pork trade.
