Mexico's deli meats industry reported a 1% drop
Although the trend in the deli meats segment was negative, the industry proved resilient in the face of the commercial and social difficulties resulting from the Covid-19 pandemic.
According to the Mexican Meat Council (Comecarne) during the past year, while there was growth in some segments of the domestic deli meat industry, overall the trend in the sector was downward with a 1.2% drop compared to 2019. The figures indicated that demand fell 2.1% with more than one million tons, which brought with it a similar behavior in per capita consumption, which stood at 7.7 kilograms, an amount 1.1% lower than that noted in 2020.
Mexico has a low consumption of these foods compared to countries such as Germany and Italy, where it amounts to 29 kilograms per capita.
During last year, this sector generated a total of 999,000 tons of processed products, with good performances recorded in the processing of sausages, which increased 1.9%, however, that of hams decreased by 3.8%; both foods together represent more than 90% of the demand for these goods nationwide. The most affected production segment, according to the agency's figures, was that of chorizo, sausage, bacon, mortadella, and pork cheese, with a total contraction of 5.6%.
Despite this scenario and the crisis due to the pandemic that began in 2020, Comecarne highlighted that within the industry there were no labor losses since the 38,000 jobs -equivalent to 48% of the jobs in the meat sector- registered by the Monthly Survey of the Manufacturing Industry (EMIM) carried out by the National Institute of Statistics and Geography (Inegi) were maintained.
In Mexico, the deli meats segment represents 23% of the food industry and 32% of the agricultural GDP.
They also highlighted that exports of these foods remained stable in 2020 compared to 2019, with a drop of just 0.8%, while imports had an even greater drop of 21.8%. This they attributed to the closure of processing plants in the United States who is our largest supplier, this behavior during the past year was directly due to causes of outbreaks of Covid-19 (Coronavirus) within their facilities, which resulted in a lower supply and a decrease in the trade deficit for Mexico of 9.3%.
