Hong Kong Foodservice Rebound Creates More Opportunity for Producers

US Meat Export Federation, President and CEO, Dan Halstrom. recently came back from Hong Kong. It was the first time he has visited the country since COVID-19 restrictions were lifted.

“Without a doubt the market in Hong Kong as it was in China, it was it was simply decimated at food service level. So it was encouraging to see a rebound. That was it's definitely started the business is not back to normal yet, but but you can see some definite improvements on the food service side, especially on USB products. Hong Kong and China are the same. They're two different markets and Hong Kong is a legitimate market in and of itself. We have data through 11 months. We'll have December here in a few weeks, but we're going to be over $400 million in US beef exports to Hong Kong. So a significant market a significant value-added market with a lot of high-end products like the like a US wagyu cuts going in there as well.”

He points out that the emergency declaration on COVID was lifted just over a year ago versus three years ago in the United States.

“It's still a very muted consumer in terms of confidence. They're definitely optimistic. We do think that there's some tailwinds coming on increasing food service demand.”

On the pork side, there have been a series of recent African swine fever outbreaks which have resulted in significant culling of pigs over the past two months, and that could heighten the need for imported pork.