(Bloomberg) --
America’s love for white meat over dark meat puts the U.S. in the best position to resolve China’s looming protein deficit -- if only the two countries could resolve their trade dispute.
That’s the view of Joe Sanderson, chief executive officer of Sanderson Farms Inc., the third biggest U.S. poultry company. If African swine fever results in China losing a third of its hogs, there is probably not enough pork in the world to fill the gap, he said. That means the Asian nation may import more chicken -- and cheap dark meat is the most appealing.
Americans mostly eat white poultry meat, and mostly in sandwiches. Much of the leftover dark meat -- the legs -- gets exported. In contrast, other countries don’t have such a zeal for breast meat. South America mostly ships whole chickens, and Europe doesn’t produce the volume that the U.S. does.
“We have a good market in the U.S. for white meat, and that makes dark meat available,” Sanderson said in a telephone interview. “We’re very cost competitive, a much lower cost than Europe.”
Without a trade pact, the impact would be less obvious as other countries would benefit from shipping directly to China while the U.S. would have to seek to fill the gaps elsewhere, he said. China prohibited U.S. poultry in 2015 due to an outbreak of highly pathogenic avian influenza. Nearly all other nationwide bans following the outbreak have been lifted.
“It’s just a maybe versus a sure thing” without an agreement, he said.
©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
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