Full Access to Peru a Boost for U.S. Beef Exports

USDA recently announced that Peru has lifted all remaining BSE-related restrictions and granted full market access for U.S. beef.

U.S. Meat Export Federation (USMEF) Senior Vice President for Global Marketing Dan Halstrom explains that Peru is already a well-established destination for U.S. beef exports, but having all federally inspected plants eligible to export to Peru provides an excellent opportunity for volume growth. Peru is an especially strong market for beef variety meat items such as tripe and hearts, which command little value in the domestic market. Although beef shipments to Peru slowed last year, exports still exceeded $25 million.

Halstrom adds that U.S. pork is also making inroads in Peru. In 2015, pork exports to Peru increased nearly 50 percent in value to $9.8 million.


TRANSCRIPT:

Joe Schuele: USDA recently announced that Peru would lift all BSE-related restrictions and grant full access for U.S. beef. In this U.S. Meat Export Federation report, Senior Vice President for Global Marketing Dan Halstrom explains what this means for the U.S. industry.

Dan Halstrom: This basically takes us from having a limited number of plants that are able to export to Peru to all of our beef plants, so this is really an opportunity for more volume. Beef offals are really the cornerstone of their market. Across the table beef offals are in high demand, especially tripe and hearts. Tripe, specifically, there could be 10 or 15 different types of tripe that could be marketed down there in the marketplace, so this is an excellent opportunity to add value to the carcass. If you were to put all of the tripe and a lot of these offal items back in the U.S. market you would have no doubt a lot less value and in some cases there may be no value in the U.S. market. So this is really incremental value being added on to these markets like Peru that really specialize in the variety meats. And that’s not to say that Peru is not a market for muscle cuts, as well. It is and there is definitely a high-end demand that is also an incremental opportunity – probably not the largest opportunity, but an opportunity nonetheless for U.S. exporters.

Joe Schuele: Halstrom notes that U.S. pork is also making inroads in Peru.

Dan Halstrom: It’s not nearly as big of a market for pork, but it is a growing market for pork, and you know five years ago we exported less than a million dollars per year of pork to Peru and we’ve seen it go up to $9 million last year. So, especially into the further processing sector and some into retail, we are seeing demand for both muscle cuts and variety meats, as well, into Peru. From a multi-species perspective, a lot of these players are the same – be it distributors, be it retailers. We’re definitely leveraging the two species together to get the most bang for the buck.

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.