October Pork Exports Largest in 16 Months

The U.S. Meat Export Federation, or USMEF, released the October export numbers and pork reached a 16-month high.

Get our free mobile app

Courtney Knupp, vice president of international market development with the National Pork Board says they are excited about the released data that shows pork’s value increased 13 percent at $697.3 million.

We were predicting this in forecasts that we'd see pickup at the end of the year, and we sure have, especially in key markets like China, Hong Kong, with variety needs, Mexico once again, leading month for them and we're seeing some pickup from them, and the Southeast Asia region, which is key for us. So, we're very excited.

Mexico still leads the list for pork exports, but Knupp says demand is building in other countries like South Korea.

A country that the U.S. pork industry and Meat Export Federation has consistently been developing for decades now. We're seeing diversification of their imports by cut, it's not just shoulders, and so we're very excited to see them come back online and again, that's showing a country fully coming out of COVID return to food service.

The non-muscle cuts, often called variety meats, continue to have strong demand in the export market, adding value to U.S. pork for products not consumed in the U.S.

As we've seen a good workforce returning to our plants were able to capture more value, those products here in the country to be exported, and that cannot be underestimated, when we look at variety needs. It was a new record value in October at 126 million, that's up 33 percent from a year ago.

According to USMEF, total U.S. pork exports through October was valued at $6.3 billion, which is down eight percent year-over-year. Visit porkcheckoff.org for the full export data analysis.