They eat Mexican meat market

Monterrey Mexico.- Mexico is already losing ground in the United States beef market, its main customer, due to the appreciation that the peso has had this year.

Figures from the Mexican Association of Meat Exporters (Mexican Beef), prepared with reports from the United States Department of Agriculture, reveal that this year Mexico’s participation in total imports of American beef fell from 25 to 21 percent. .

Australia and New Zealand are the countries that are taking away part of the US market from Mexican meat and not only because of the exchange rate, but also because of lower prices, which are already beginning to make shipments from Mexico unaffordable.

The reason for the greater attack by both Oceanian countries on the United States market is due to the lower purchases that China, their main client, is making, as the Asian nation continues to register record growth in its beef production, sources from Mexican Beef.

Canada, Mexico, Australia, New Zealand and Brazil are, in that order, the top five foreign suppliers of beef to the United States.

Each year, Mexico exports 15 percent of its total beef production, basically fine cuts, and the majority goes to the United States.

From January 1 to the first week of November 2023, Mexican exporters exported 229,823 tons to the United States, 9.5 percent less than in the same period of 2022.

In contrast, shipments from Australia and New Zealand increased 53 and 36 percent annually.

With this, the wide gap in participation that Mexico had over those two countries in meat imports from the United States was reduced significantly, since Australia’s increased from 12 to 17 percent and New Zealand’s increased from 11 to 17 percent. 15 percent.

Juan Ley, president of Mexican Beef, said that the performance of Mexican exports contrasts with the expectation of average growth of 10.5 percent in volume that marketers in the industry anticipated at the beginning of the year.

“We were thinking of continuing with the sustained growth that we have had year after year, then the appreciation of the Peso came and we believed that it was something temporary; however, it lasted all year and it is hitting us hard, in addition to the fact that it is becoming difficult to compete with product that is arriving at lower prices to the United States,” he explained.

“For the export to be profitable, it is necessary for the price to generate a differential that makes it possible to compensate for the cost of shipping and generate profits for those who export, and we are already struggling with this.

“The exchange rate is hitting us in exports, but also here in Mexico, because it lowers the price (at the producer level) of the pieces that compete with imports.”