February 11, 2004

 

 

Mexico Expects To Begin Exporting Chicken To US This Year

 

Mexico expects to start exporting chicken meat to the U.S. sometime in the next few months, making it one of the few countries to penetrate the world's biggest poultry market.

 

The only other country that exports chicken to the U.S., where consumers chew up 25.6 billion pounds of the meat each year, is Canada. Canada's exports to the U.S., though, are limited because its production costs are higher.

 

The U.S. has recognized five Mexican states as being free of the avian disease New Castle, which has prevented Mexico from exporting its birds to the U.S., Javier Trujillo, director of safety and inspection at Mexico's Agriculture Ministry, said Tuesday.

 

U.S. food safety inspectors will come to Mexico on March 9 to begin a five-week revision of 33 chicken processing facilities. Trujillo said he expects some poultry plants to get the green light to export to the U.S. soon after the inspection process ends.

 

"We're very confident that we're going to have some plants that are 100% qualified (to export)," Trujillo said during a press conference.

 

Egg producers in the state of Sonora have been able to ship their goods to the U.S. for about a month, and Mexican chicken producer Industrias Bachoco SA is likely to soon get permission to export poultry from a plant in the state of Sinaloa, Trujillo said.

 

Mexico produced 2.1 million tons of chicken meat in 2003 and 1.9 million tons of eggs, making it the world's fourth-largest chicken producer and sixth-biggest egg producer.

 

The country has been trying to penetrate the U.S. consumer market for years, but its entry was held up by incidences of the New Castle disease, a highly infectious virus that can decimate a farm's entire poultry population. The disease does not pose a serious health threat to humans.

 

The two largest U.S. poultry producers, Tyson Foods Inc. and Pilgrim's Pride Corp., already have processing plants in Mexico, and industry officials say they would welcome the imports.

 

"When Mexico meets the (health) standards, it's appropriate for Mexico to export to the United States," said Bill Roenigk, staff economist and market analyst for the Washington D.C.-based National Chicken Council.

 

Efforts to get Mexican chicken into the U.S. have intensified in recent years, especially since Mexico extended compensatory duties through 2007 on cheap U.S. leg meat last summer.

Mexico imported about 160,000 tons of U.S. chicken worth nearly $100 million in 2003, making it the second-biggest international market for the meat.

 

The best selling chicken parts in the U.S. are breasts, followed by wings. Given this preference, large amounts of dark meat pieces like drumsticks are sent overseas, representing 93% of total U.S. chicken exports.

 

"If Mexico can ship breast meat to the U.S., and be competitive, there are probably some opportunities there," said Roenigk.