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USMEF seminar explores meat demand growth outside of U.S.

The biggest opportunity for demand growth for U.S. beef and pork is outside the United States. 

Lucia Ruano, the U.S. Meat Export Federation’s Central America representative tells Brownfield it starts with education. 

“Every year, people are learning more about the US meats, the red meats, and they are starting to demand the product because they like it better,” she says.

Ruano says this week, the international delegation has been able to get hands-on experience to tailor meat products to their country’s own nutritional needs.

“When they have the opportunity to go to the lab, they can see the different methods, the different equipment that we have here in the United States, and that helps them improve their techniques in each of their countries,” she says.

Gloria Rivera, of Honduras, works for a meat importer in Costa Rica. She says she wants to learn more about the U.S. exporting process because quality from other countries has been an issue.

“We usually have or receive our products with bad odors and greenish appearance, and I know what that is all about, because of the freeze or cold chain during transportation,” she says.

Brownfield interviewed Ruano and Rivera at the USMEF Global Meats Processing Seminar at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

AUDIO: Lucia Ruano, U.S. Meat Export Federation

AUDIO: Gloria Rivera, of Honduras