August pork exports totaled 226,519 metric tons. Led by Mexico and their record pace of imports, Kelli Wicks, manager of international market development with National Pork Board, compared the five-year and three-year averages for value of U.S. pork.

“They have grown 54 percent this year compared to the five-year average and 45 percent compared to the three-year average. So, that tells you one thing. Mexico has been able to see what that continued investment in the country and working with them really does to those numbers.” 

Pork producers can see work is also being done to promote product from a domestic and international perspective.

“And I think it’s really been great that our international team and domestic team, as well as our human nutrition team has really been working cohesively to boost that demand and find different ways. And so, here on the international side, we’re really looking at those partnerships and how we can boost where we’re already at, where we can capture more space where we’re not quite fully there.” 

Investments from Pork Checkoff continue to bring greater demand and value to the pork carcass through global fusion.

“There may be ways that we could use a variety meats, or a way that say like for tonkatsu, that’s a loin product and how we could potentially use that here in the U.S. So, just finding different ways to learn from other places and bring it back to U.S., and I know the domestic team at the National Pork Board is really honing in on some of those, especially in the multicultural space.” 

From the start of the year, pork exports were 11 percent above last year’s pace with a value of $5.32 billion.  Visit usmef.org to view the press release analyzing the August exports.