News

Record amount of red meat in cold storage

The USDA says red meat stocks in cold storage hit a new monthly record for September at 1.207 billion pounds. That’s up 7% on the month and slightly higher than a year ago. It’s also the highest total for the month since data was first recorded in 1946. Export and domestic demand have been good, but U.S. beef and pork production have notched new monthly records several times this year and the year to date total is 3% ahead of last year.

For September, beef was the highest ever since the USDA started counting the data in 1932 at 520.717 million pounds. Pork was up 5% on the month, but down 2% on the year at 642.044 million pounds. The biggest jump for pork cuts was in bellies, up 130% since last September at 24.962 million pounds.

High production levels and export competition pushed cheese stocks up 7% on the year to 1.238 billion pounds. Still, that was unchanged from August, so production may be dialed back a bit. By type, American cheese was up 6% on the year, Swiss was 14% higher, and other types were 9% higher. Butter stocks jumped 44% to 269.170 million pounds. That was down 16% on the month.

The poultry total was up 2%, at 1.289 billion pounds with a 14% increase in turkey to 511.119 million cancelling out a 4% decrease in chicken to 768.728 million pounds.