September 15, 2022
Mexico imported US chicken cuts 14% up year-on-year
Major Mexican poultry producer Bachoco said Mexico imports of US chicken leg and thigh cuts between January to July 2022 reached US$651 million or 14% up year-on-year, Opportimes reported.
Mexico was the world's biggest importer of these cuts in 2021.
While 2021 set a new record for chicken leg and thigh imports into Mexico (US$998 million), the previous three years (2018 to 2020) saw no purchases from abroad that exceeded US$700 million.
All tariffs preventing the trade of chicken between Mexico and the US as of January 1, 2008, have been removed.
This enables US producers to send any amount of chicken products—mostly cuts from the leg and thigh—duty-free to Mexico. The main country to which American chicken exports go is Mexico.
Bachoco saod that this development does have an effect on the Mexican chicken market, though neither it nor any other Mexican chicken producer is currently able to export comparable goods from Mexico to the US.
The U.S. division of Bachoco exports chicken products to a number of nations, including Mexico and Guatemala, and is consequently governed by the various laws in each of these nations.
Mexico is one of the top ten producers in the world, according to the National Union of Poultry Farmers (UNA), with an estimated production of 3,665 tonnes of chicken in 2021 and a per capita consumption of 33.5 kilogrammes, an increase of 1.2% from the per capita value in 2020.
The most popular type of meat consumed in Mexico is fresh chicken. More than 90% of chicken is sold fresh, according to UNA, and only a small portion is frozen or value-added (marinated, breaded, partially or fully cooked, among other things). Given the preference for fresh products, these products have had limited acceptance in the Mexican poultry market.
With a 35% market share, Bachoco said it is the market leader in the Mexican poultry sector. When combined with its main rival, they have a market share of roughly 60%.
- Opportimes
