Diet trends aggravate U.S. meat glut

Northwest Indiana News

Looks like meat consumption has dropped:

After years of people stuffing themselves with chicken, pork and beef while they were following low-carb diets like Atkins, the meat industry is looking at a glut as the diet trend turns toward a more balanced approach.

Benchmark wholesale prices for beef and pork are down more than 8 percent from a year ago and 20 percent for chicken, according to the Livestock Marketing Information Center.

"There is just an overabundance of protein on the market," the center's Jim Robb said.

Retail prices for meats are forecast to be flat to 1 percent lower this year compared to a 2 percent to 3 percent increase for all foods, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Agricultural economists said the oversupply and subsequent dip in prices is part of the normal business cycle. Good profits in 2004 and 2005 tempted farmers and agribusiness companies to raise production faster than the growth in demand.

But changing diets have helped pressure the market, as have export problems for beef and chicken.

Consumers are increasingly shunning high-protein diets like Atkins and South Beach, which have been lauded for inducing rapid weight loss but criticized for raising the intake of fats and cholesterol.

Of course, there's more to it than that, and the article goes into those reasons, but I wanted to focus on this capper to an otherwise encouraging article:

Despite diet fads, the long-term trend is for U.S. consumers to eat more meat and spend less for it as producers and processors become more efficient.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture projects a steady rise in annual per capita consumption of red meats and poultry from 220 pounds in 2005 to 231 pounds in 2015, while consumer meat expenditures decline from about 2 percent to 1.3 percent of disposable income.

The last thing individuals need to do is eat more meat. Now per capita doesn't necessarily mean that those who eat meat will eat more. Here it means that those who do not eat much meat will be able to afford to eat more as prices come down. That's something veg activists need to prevent through outreach. Otherwise, despite the growth of the vegetarian food product category, meat consumption will continue to expand as well.

Tags: meat consumption