TOKYO: Japan will post new records for broiler meat production, consumption, and importation in 2015, a recent report from the US Department of Agriculture’s Foreign Agricultural Service predicts. The records will arise from poultry sales outpacing relatively higher priced pork and beef in both the retail and food service sectors.
Pork prices have now begun to soften, but the trend of moving towards lower-priced chicken meat continues as taxes and a weakened yen put pressure on food prices. There will be more competition between poultry and pork in the latter part of the year, but beef prices will remain high, the report says.
Driven by record-breaking levels of both domestic production and of imports, the report projects Japan’s 2015 total broiler consumption to reach a new record high at 2.245 million MT, exceeding the previous record set in 2014. It also predicts that this record consumption will remain steady during 2016.
Climbing slightly higher, Japanese broiler production (at 1.375 million MT or 665 million broilers) and Japanese broiler imports (projected up slightly to 900,000 MT) should both set new records.
In Japan, broiler meat makes up most of the poultry meat produced, as very few other poultry animals are produced there. Japan’s 2015 total domestic broiler production is projected to exceed the 2014 record high, reaching a total slaughter of 651 million broilers at an average live weight of 2.95 kg. per broiler.