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Meat exports to Cuba have potential, but obstacles remain

The loosening of trade relations with Cuba has been warmly welcomed by many agricultural commodity groups looking to increase sales to the Caribbean nation.

The president and CEO of the U.S. Meat Export Federation, Phil Seng, says that despite the long-time trade embargo, Cuba has actually been open to U.S. beef and pork for many years. But as Seng explains, it’s been a difficult market to serve because of the lack of private sector infrastructure and buying power.

“When we sell pork or beef, or whatever the items, to Cuba, there’s one buying organ—Alimport—which has been around for the last 30 or 40 years,” Seng says. “They’re the institution that buys all product coming through that one vector, if you will.  So it’s not like going and selling product in other countries in the Caribbean or elsewhere around the world.  It’s still very state-controlled.”

Seng says the Cuban market does hold promise.

“They do consume pork and they do consumer beef—and so we see there’s an opportunity there,” he says. “But we also have to bear in mind that for the last 40 years, all of the rest of the world has been trading with Cuba—except the United States—and so a lot of our competitors definitely have a leg up on us.”

So there’s a lot of work to be done before we see increased meat sales to Cuba, Seng says.

“There’s still a lot of development and a lot of change that’s going to have to occur in Cuba before we can declare that it’s going to be one of the leading markets in the Caribbean.”