The Pork Checkoff selects Ernst and Young to establish metrics for sustainability.
National Pork Board VP of sustainability, Brett Kaysen says that most people know them in the accounting space, but they have built a global portfolio as well. This effort is positioned to build trust and increase the value of U.S. pork.
Kaysen states, “What we’re really trying to do here is to grow the sales of pork, both in the domestic marketplace and, as well as, globally, and in order to do that, we have to give that consumer the attitude, the aptitude, and the feeling of, ‘I really enjoy what I’m eating, I love the taste, I love the flavor, but you know what else, I enjoy doing it because I feel like it’s good for the people that produce it, it’s good for my nutritional values, and it also fits with my core values.’”
He adds that this will demonstrate the proof points of what hog producers have already been doing for decades.
Large pork supplies and higher hog prices as slaughter rates recover from the pandemic, put pressure on processing margins. USDA says that this limits the incentives for plants to increase slaughter rates further.
Pork production in the third quarter sits at 7.2 billion pounds, low than last month’s predictions, but still 7 percent over that of last year.
Dressed weights are likely to be lower through the end of the year as producers use slow-growth rations and did not administer doses of ractopanine.
Backlog still continues to place challenges on pork processing.
USDA on the road to recovery for beef and pork prices.