World meat trade in 2026: beef and pork stagnate, while poultry continues to rise

Published 2025년 12월 23일

Tridge summary

This is the summary of the semi-annual report issued by the United States Department of Agriculture that includes data on trade, production, consumption, and stocks in the United States and globally, as well as an analysis of the events affecting the global trade of livestock and poultry. It covers beef and veal, cattle, pork, pigs, and chicken meat. Here we will focus on pork and chicken meat.

Original content

Source: USDA Pork Following the growth recorded in 2025, sales of beef and pork from major exporting countries are expected to decrease in 2026. In contrast, chicken meat shipments will continue to increase, reaching a record high. The global meat trade has experienced a series of notable changes since 2019. While 2017 and 2018 were characterized by growth rates in line with historical averages, the pork trade saw a sharp rebound in 2019 and 2020, driving global meat trade and surpassing beef trade volumes in 2020 and 2021. This notable increase in pork trade was due to the surge in demand in China, following outbreaks of African swine fever (ASF) that decimated its domestic production. In 2022 and 2023, global meat trade declined, as the expansion of beef and chicken meat trade failed to offset the lower demand for pork in China. Thanks to the decrease in feed prices in 2024 and 2025, along with a relatively lower number of major disease outbreaks in major exporting countries, ...

Source: Agromeat