Brazil is hardy and consistent. They do a great job in opening markets for their poultry products. The Brazilian Ministry of Agriculture, the Export Promotion Agency (Apex) and the Brazilian Animal Protein Association (ABPA) are a terrific trio in this endeavor. Quite often new markets are announced.
Well, this week they announced the opening of another country, this time in the Latin American region – El Salvador. Entering El Salvador means not only entering the country itself but to all Central America, a region that has been strongly consolidating in the last few years and is home to two important multinationals: CMI Alimentos and Cargill Protein Latin America.
El Salvador produced almost 70 million broilers and had 4.5 million laying hens in production in 2022. It is a very small country in terms of surface area – it actually ranks last of the 23 Latin American countries. However, in terms of population, it has 6.6 million people, more than neighboring Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama. This fact makes it an important regional market.
El Salvador has four important broiler companies: CMI Alimentos , Sello de Oro, Avícola Campestre and Los Teques. The multinational Alimentos CMI is the largest, making up part of the top 10 in Latin America. On the other hand, Granja Catalana, El Granjero and San Benito are the three largest egg producers.
One extra piece of information: the average Salvadoran per capita consumption of chicken in 2022 was 24.5 kg (below the Latin American average of 33.7 kg/person) and 172 eggs, below the average of 230 eggs/person. This means there is room to grow, household income permitting.
As per ABPA data, El Salvador imported 22,000 metric tons (MT) of chicken meat and 2.5 MT of eggs in 2023, mainly from the U.S. and Guatemala. Importing chicken from the U.S. is a tradition, due to links and relative proximity, but also low prices. Let’s see how this works with Brazil.
What do you think?
