Long Road to Rebuilding Restaurant Demand for Protein

DENVER, CO – For the animal protein industry, 2020 was the most volatile and for many, the most challenging year in history. Will Sawyer is the lead animal protein economist in CoBank’s Knowledge Exchange research division and explains that the COVID-19 pandemic drove a historic shift to eat at home, temporarily closing nearly half of U.S. red meat capacity in the spring, while lifting retail meat prices to record highs. Domestic food consumption last spring, reverted to a level of at-home-food consumption not seen since the early 80s, and with that, the greatest and most rapid shift in meat and food supplies the industry has ever seen. While conditions are improving and protein supplies are back to normal, the foodservice sector has lost one in five restaurants nationwide and it could be the last half of 2022 before foodservice sales return to pre-pandemic levels as the restaurant industry rebuilds. This equates, Sawyer adds, to a challenging outlook for animal proteins that usually are consumed at restaurants including high-value beef cuts, poultry produced for foodservice specs, and labor-intensive processed meat products that are in short supply.
(SOURCE: All Ag News)