Barriers Removed for U.S. Beef and Pork in Costa Rica

Though Costa Rica is a relatively small destination for U.S. beef and pork, the market holds strong interest for U.S. meat exporters because of its rapidly growing tourism and hospitality industries. But an unusual technical requirement has made it difficult to ship chilled (never frozen) beef and pork to Costa Rica: the product had to arrive in the country within nine days of its packing date. This requirement was recently removed, as explained by U.S. Meat Export Federation (USMEF) Technical Services Manager Cheyenne McEndaffer. She notes that USMEF worked with industry partners and U.S. trade officials to address this issue and bring it to a successful conclusion, which will create more opportunities for high-quality beef and pork in Costa Rica. Costa Rica also removed a requirement that frozen U.S. beef and pork must arrive in the country within six months of its packing date. Through September, U.S. beef exports to Costa Rica totaled $10.5 million – up more than 40 percent from a year ago. Pork exports totaled $9.2 million, up 8 percent.


TRANSCRIPT:

Joe Schuele: Costa Rica is a small but promising destination for U.S. beef and pork exports, but it’s been difficult to ship chilled meat to this market because of unusual technical requirements. In this U.S. Meat Export Federation report, Technical Services Manager Cheyenne McEndaffer explains recent changes that are good news for the U.S. meat industry.

Cheyenne McEndaffer: From a high-level view, we full access to Costa Rica – we can ship all pork products, we can ship all beef products – but we have had a lingering technical requirement that does impact our exports down there, and that was a requirement Costa Rica had that chilled product, either beef or pork, could not land in the country nine days past its packing date. So if you consider how long it takes to get from a plant in the Midwest, let’s say, to a cold storage on the coast, get export certification, get loaded into the container, get loaded onto the carrier and then transit time down to Central America, it just wasn’t feasible for us to send chilled that way. So being able to remove this requirement through communications with the U.S. Embassy in Costa Rica, as well as the foreign government, will open up that option and we will hopefully be able to send more chilled product to meet the tourism demand.

Joe Schuele: Gains were also made in Costa Rica regarding frozen beef and pork.

Cheyenne McEndaffer: The requirement for frozen was that the frozen beef and pork had to land in Costa Rica within six months of the packing date. This is a case where we probably would land most frozen products in that time frame, but it could go up to a year, and that is perfectly fine from a quality and safety standpoint. Again this will probably increase not only the volume of frozen but maybe bring on more interest from exporters that don’t have to deal with this onerous requirement.

Joe Schuele: Through the first three quarters of the year, U.S. beef exports to Costa Rica totaled $10.5 million, while U.S. pork exports were $9.2 million. For more information, please visit USMEF.org. For the U.S. Meat Export Federation, I’m Joe Schuele.