U.S., Global Meat Demand Beefs Up as Cattle Industry Works to Keep Beef at Center of the Plate

More than 6,000 cattle producers, industry partners and stakeholders are gathering in Nashville this week for the National Cattlemen's Beef Association (NCBA) annual convention, all in an effort to make sure beef stays at the center of the plate.

Demand has been the centerpiece for the industry, with significant growth in the past two years despite pandemic and inflation pressures.

"Demand has just been really outstanding through all of this and all of the challenges," says Derrell Peel, extension livestock specialist with Oklahoma State University. "We're still trying to get food service open, kind of get back. And I don't know what normal is going to be, because one of the questions we have are what sort of permanent or semi-permanent changes have we made in food consumption. But the bottom line is food demand -and beef demand in particular - has just been phenomenal."

Consumer and wholesale beef demand are currently at 30-year highs, and economists say there are currently limited signs of that demand slowing down.

"The stars are kind of aligning here to have some optimism. And so the bottom line is we're expecting by the fourth quarter to see stronger year over year prices and continuing that certainly through 2022," adds Peel. 

Some of that driven by the cattle industry producing better products.

"Look at the amount of cattle grading Prime and Choice today compared to just 15 years ago, it's gone from basically 55% to 83%," says Kevin Good of CattleFax. "And in the last decade, a huge increase in Prime going from 3% to 10%. Also the top two-thirds Choice going from 16% to 25%." 

It's not just translating into good demand here at home.

"Record exports this year, led by huge year over year increases in China and continue to see very strong sales into both Japan and South Korea," Good adds. 

"Surpassing Japan as that leading market hitting that safeguard into the Japanese market, while not a great thing, really speaks to volume and it speaks to the fact that those markets love what we produce," says Ethan Lane, government affairs for National Cattlemen's Beef Association (NCBA). "They like the taste of U.S. beef. They like the consistency and the quality. They want more of it."

Keeping and growing that export business is a big goal over the next couple of years. 

"Keeping the momentum going into those markets, making sure that we are producing enough in this country and expanding that process and capacity to meet that growing demand overseas, I think ties back into some of those leverage conversations as well, making sure that we're not just looking at reducing herd size. Gosh, that's where we are in the cycle. We've got too much business to do," adds Lane. 

With drought and pandemic pressure is still an issue meeting that growing demand may be the biggest challenge in 2021 and beyond.

"We have too many markets overseas that we need to keep supplied with that beef, because they don't want the Aussie beef and they don't want some of those other countries," says Lane. "If they get a choice, they pick ours."