Ecuadoran Team Examines U.S. Meat Industry, but Market Holds Many Challenges

Last week a team of food and livestock industry leaders from Ecuador visited the U.S. Meat Export Federation’s (USMEF) Denver headquarters to learn more about the U.S. meat industry and USMEF’s role in expanding global exports of U.S. beef, pork and lamb. USMEF Technical Services Manager Cheyenne McEndaffer explains that Ecuador is a market that holds some promise for U.S. beef and pork, but trade barriers make it difficult to serve. For example, Ecuador reopened to U.S. beef in 2014, after being closed for more than a decade due to BSE-related restrictions. But about one year later, Ecuador imposed a 45 percent surcharge on all imported beef and pork – on top of the country’s already-high import duties.

U.S. beef has an established presence in Peru and Chile, and has recently gained momentum in Colombia. The U.S. industry is anxious to expand this success to Ecuador, but without a free trade agreement it is a challenging market to develop. The World Trade Organization (WTO) is examining whether Ecuador’s import surcharges can be economically justified, but has allowed them to stay in effect during the WTO review.

The Ecuadoran group is part of USDA’s Cochran Fellowship Program, which provides training opportunities to farmers and other agriculture industry professionals from emerging markets. Their participation was organized through the University of Missouri, with the goal of providing the team with information related to agricultural trade and marketing. More details from their visit to USMEF headquarters are available online.


TRANSCRIPT:

Joe Schuele: The U.S. Meat Export Federation hosted a group of livestock and food industry leaders from Ecuador so they could learn more about the U.S. meat industry. In this USMEF report, Technical Services Manager Cheyenne McEndaffer that Ecuador is a promising but also very challenging market for U.S. red meat.

Cheyenne McEndaffer: They’re meeting with USMEF to learn what our functions are both as a marketing association as well as to get an overview of U.S. exports to Ecuador. We have had pork access to Ecuador but we were closed for beef access since the 2003 BSE case, so that market finally opened in April 2014. So we had a market opening seminar, a lot of the importers were excited to have U.S. beef back in the market – we do have some high-end foodservice opportunities there, as well in the main cities like Quito and Guayaquil. However, as of April 2015, the Ecuadoran government imposed a 45 percent import surcharge on top of the already-high beef duties. So the steps we took getting product back in the market have kind of been offset because that surcharge makes our beef very, very expensive. So we’ve seen a setback there, but we’ve also seen some issues getting import licenses.

Joe Schuele: U.S. beef has made inroads in markets like Chile, Peru and Colombia, but Ecuador is more difficult because of the lack of a Free Trade Agreement.

Cheyenne McEndaffer: We’ve had from last year a 75 percent uptick in Colombia. Colombia is really a success story where we’re getting in more beef offals, as well as increasing our volumes of high-end middle meats for retail and foodservice. So we’re hoping to carry that over to Ecuador if we can get rid of some of these import challenges. But unlike Colombia and the other countries where we do have FTAs now, that is an issue. Because even without the import surcharge, we still have a 20 to 22 percent on beef, whether it’s offals or muscle cuts.

Joe Schuele: For more on this and other trade issues, please visit USMEF.org. For the U.S. Meat Export Federation, I’m Joe Schuele.