India’s 1.3 Billion People Hold Big Opportunity for U.S. Pork
Although the export potential may start off small in India, U.S. Meat Export Federation’s president and CEO Dan Halstrom believes the opportunity to tell U.S. pork’s story is a gamechanger.
“Anytime you're talking about a population base of almost 1.3 billion people, it bodes well for the future,” Halstrom told guest host Clinton Griffiths on AgriTalk on Tuesday.
Halstrom said this access to India creates a major opportunity to explain U.S. pork production systems and introduce the pork products the U.S. has to offer.
“The market [in India] has a lot of challenges. Infrastructure is not that efficient. Modern retail is not that developed yet,” Halstrom said. “Yet these are things you see in developing regions. We're not really surprised by that.”
The flip side? India is experiencing e-commerce and online platform growth. Because of this, he thinks it’s just a matter of time before that market will develop.
“We're excited about the opportunity to get started,” he said. “Especially when you're dealing with a market that's almost the size of China.”
Growing Port Problems
Ongoing shipping challenges and roadblocks at the ports continue to cause headaches for exporters.
“Shipping delays are common now,” Halstrom said. “Almost every week, it happens not only on frozen pork, beef and lamb products, but chilled as well. It's getting to a very severe level.”
That being said, Halstrom believes there is reason to be optimistic because there is a lot of focus on this topic now – from the government, the port and all the different links in the supply chain.
2022 Export Outlook
Business is absolutely booming on the export side, Halstrom said.
“I think it's safe to say I have never seen demand this good. And demand domestically is pretty good. So you add the two together – domestic demand and the international demand – that’s part of the reason we're seeing some of the prices we're seeing because demand is just so darn solid,” he said.
However, he’s quick to point out the shipping delays and challenges with the supply chain are causing some global customers to source product from more than one source.
“Customers are diversifying and having multiple sources, because they just don't know exactly when product is going to arrive. Whereas two or three years ago, they knew exactly what day it was going to arrive,” he said.
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