December 14, 2012

 

US pork exports achieve new records for October

 

 

US pork exports reach new monthly records in October, at 218,132 metric tons, according to the USDA.

 

Export volume was 9% above last year and broke the previous monthly record of 217,080 tonnes set in November 2011. Export value exceeded US$600 million for the first time, breaking the previous high by 1.5%.

 

For January through October, US pork exports were 3% ahead of last year's record pace in volume (1.875 million tonnes) and 6% higher in value (US$5.24 billion).

 

Beef exports also posted solid results in October, with export value (US$496 million) increasing 10% over last year despite a 4% decline in volume (101,447 tonnes). This was consistent with this year's January-October pattern, which has seen an 11% decline in volume (951,886 tonnes) compared to 2011 while export value (US$4.6 billion) remained 2% ahead of last year's record pace.

 

October pork exports accounted for 23% of muscle cut production and 27.4% when including variety meat. For January-October, these ratios were 23.6% and 27%, respectively. This was slightly higher than last year for muscle cut and steady with last year's percentage of total production exported. On a per-head-of-slaughter basis, October exports equated to US$55.95. For January through October, the per-head average increased 3.5% from a year ago to US$56.14.

 

Several major pork export markets posted their best performances of the year in October, while others recorded their highest totals in several months.

 

Mexico, with its best month since January 2012, took 56,282 tonnes valued at US$108.5 million. This pushed the January-October totals to 499,724 tonnes (+16% from the same period last year) valued at US$928.5 million (+12%).

 

Exports to Japan were the largest since March 2011, totaling 45,084 tonnes valued at US$188.1 million.

 

Russia posted its largest total since May 2010, with 13,278 tonnes valued at US$38.9 million.

 

Exports to South Korea, below the record-setting totals of 2011 for most of this year, rebounded in October to 14,050 tonnes valued at just over US$37 million - the best performance since March 2012.

 

Strong October totals were also recorded in Canada, Oceania, Central and South America and the ASEAN region.