Cattle producers recently promoted U.S. beef on a trip to Japan and Korea with the U.S. Meat Export Federation.
June Loseke, a Nebraska-based cattle producer and veterinarian shared her impressions of both of these key export markets in Asia.
“There’s been a shift both demographically and with what the consumer wants, so they’ve gone from a rice-based diet to a mainly meat-centric diet, and that’s trending in that direction. Just like a lot of countries, the average age of the farmer has increased, and their ability to produce domestic protein is declining — so, there’s a great opportunity for increased market share because of that.”
June Loseke, Nebraska cattle producer & veterinarian
One thing that surprised Loseke was the market opportunities for U.S. beef in institutional food service. For instance, Samsung, which you would think more of as an electronic company, serves its employees more than 8,000 meals per day.
She told us what she shared with these potential beef buyers:
“I get to show a video of our family and our feed yard and what we do in Nebraska, which, in my mind, hopefully represents all of the Farmer-Feeders in eastern Nebraska. I’m just so proud to tell our story and who we are — even though we seem like, maybe, just a little drop in the bucket collectively. We are feeding them a nutritious, well-balanced, safe, and high-quality protein.”
June Loseke, Nebraska cattle producer and veterinarian
Some of the questions asked by Asian buyers during the trip were about foreign animal disease concerns, including BSE and avian influenza.
