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U.S. poultry exports impacted by shipping container issues

Poultry is among the U.S. agricultural exports impacted by a lack of access to empty shipping containers.

Shelby Watson with the USA Poultry and Egg Export Council says retail products are receiving priority at the ports.

“They are wanting to send containers back to Asia empty so they can get back to the clothes and things they can sell faster and make a little bit more money off of them. So getting containers for product to get out as exports is definitely one of our top issues right now that we’re working on.”

She tells Brownfield a panel representing producers, traders, and the cold storage supply chain recently met to discuss the problem.

“And they really sat and talked about how they can all come together and demand better transparency with these shipping companies. So I think there are some plans in place, and hopefully we should see some easing of the situation soon.”

Watson says despite the backlog, poultry products are still being exported and demand is maintaining near year-ago levels.