One of the world’s largest food trade shows was held recently, SIAL Paris. The U.S. Meat Export Federation (USMEF) hosted a pavilion during the biennial event for the food industry. This international food show is the hub of food innovation, bringing together producers, distributors, restaurateurs, and importers-exporters.
The event put U.S. beef, pork and lamb exporters in front of buyers from more than 200 countries, according to USMEF CEO Dan Halstrom.
“It’s definitely a global show,” Halstrom says. “Now, as far as U.S. beef products and pork products - there’s probably a few regions that we’re more interested in than others. The obvious one being the EU, especially for the beef side. A lot of players were there from the EU.”
In addition, Africa had a large contingent from a lot of different regions, as well as the Middle East and Asia.
“Asia was represented, not as strong as those other ones, but really it is a global show for people from all over the world,” Halstrom says. “The U.S. beef into Europe was probably the main topic for the show. We had all the major players that are either exhibiting with us or were working out of our pavilion, both importers and exporters. And as we all know, a little bit supply constrained at the moment, especially as we look forward into 2025, but I think the enthusiasm was still strong for U.S. beef, despite that. And not everyone is reducing. There’s several importers that were increasing their volumes, which is a good sign as well.”
With recent constriction in EU pork production, the door for U.S. market share may be opening too, according to Halstrom.
“We’re still seeing expansion in Spain, but the rest of Europe has definitely been on a downtrend versus three to four years ago,” he explains. “This opens up opportunities, not only to some of the places in the world where they had a high market share, I think about places like the Philippines, for example, which had a very high EU pork share. We’re seeing a shift there.”
China and Japan are other examples of reduced market share. Japan. USMEF will be following closely to see what’s going on from a competition standpoint out of the EU.
USMEF’s participation in SIAL was made possible through support from USDA’s Regional Agricultural Promotion Program.
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