News

First group of Chinese beef buyers visits Nebraska

Chinese beef buyers listen to a presentation the University of Nebraska-Lincoln meat processing facility on Wednesday.

The first group of Chinese beef buyers to visit the U.S. since the reopening of the Chinese beef market has been in Nebraska this week.

The tour was coordinated by USDA’s Foreign Ag Service (FAS) and the Nebraska Department of Agriculture. FAS’ Mark Ford, director of the U.S. Agricultural Trade Office in Beijing, says they’ve focused their discussions on the high quality of U.S. beef, compared to what the Chinese are used to.

“If you look at just ribeye, for example. Ribeye is very basic for us in the U.S., we get ribeye all the time,” Ford says. “But they (the Chinese) don’t have very high cuts of ribeye. So just that in itself is something that they fell in love with here. It’s really been fun to watch.”

Ford says it will be interesting to see how the availability of higher quality U.S. beef impacts the “cuisine choices” of the Chinese people.

“We’re all familiar in the U.S. with a steak dinner. You have a baked potato, you have a steak, and you have a glass of wine or whatever you’re going to drink. But that’s not necessarily the concept in China,” Ford says. “So it’s going to be fun to see that once they really have the choice of U.S. beef, if they start to go that route, or if they start to use it in their own dishes, or if they do a mix. That’s going to be really interesting to see.”

Ford says the Chinese buyers have no concerns about food quality or food safety. Their biggest concern right now is price, which is tied to the tight supply of U.S. beef that meets the Chinese government’s specifications.

“We all know the price is high because cattle production has been low here for a bit,” he says. “It’s starting to increase, so we’ll be okay in that. But it’s a matter of telling them that the price is going to start to drop. That’s been their number one concern.”

Ford says it hard to say how quickly the Chinese market for U.S. beef will grow.

“It depends on whenever we increase our production—how rapid that’s going to happen. I anticipate—and this is just me looking at the numbers—probably within the next six months to a year, we’re going to know where we’re at as far as exporting, once production is at that level. But that’s just a guestimate.”

AUDIO: Mark Ford

Add Comment

Your email address will not be published.


 

Stay Up to Date

Subscribe for our newsletter today and receive relevant news straight to your inbox!