With 2021’s complications carrying into 2022, the poultry market remains difficult to determine, even for the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA).
During the USDA Daily Radio News on February 16, USDA Outlook Chairman Mark Jekanowski discussed predictions for this year’s poultry production and pricing.
It appears that the predictions made at the beginning of 2022 have not matched the outcome of this last month and a half as prices are higher than originally predicted while production is lower. However, poultry is still projected to expand this year more so than any of the other meat industries.
Production
The USDA currently predicts that 2022 will see 45.5 billion pounds of poultry produced in the U.S. by the end of the year. However, that is 120 million pounds lower than last month’s prediction.
Poultry production has been difficult to pinpoint as “the recent slaughter pace and hatchery data suggests that expansion isn’t happening quite as quickly as we had anticipated and that could also be due in part to high rising feed prices that also reduces some of the incentives for expansion,” Jekanowski said.
Pricing
Poultry pricing has gotten quite a bit of attention in the news recently as inflation for meat has gone up. According to the USDA, the average broiler prices for this year are projected to be $1.13 per pound which would be an 11.6 cents increase per pound year over year – an 11.5% increase.
This will have an effect on grocery store prices for consumers as the USDA also projects a price hike of “up to about 3%,” the USDA stated.
