Meat shortage; substitutes soar

London/New York | The coronavirus pandemic is reshaping the US meat market, with sales of plant-based substitutes surging while closures of slaughterhouses and processing plants threaten production of the real thing.

US sales of plant-based meat substitutes jumped 200 per cent in the week ending April 18, compared with the same period last year, and surged by 265 per cent over an eight-week period, according to consumer data group Nielsen. This compares with jumps of 30 per cent and 39 per cent respectively over the same periods for fresh meat.

Though plant-based meat still accounts for a small portion of the US protein market, it has been growing rapidly in popularity in recent years — a trend that has been accelerated by the crisis, said Bruce Friedrich at the Good Food Institute.

Compared with real meat, the production of plant-based protein is also more automated and less reliant on labour, so is less vulnerable to staffing shortages. ‘‘With plant-based meat, supply chain factors are much easier to manipulate,’’ said Mr Friedrich.

By contrast, there has been a sharp fall in US meat production capacity as many facilities close or slow down their operations as a result of the virus.

As of Monday, 32 per cent of US pork production capacity was offline, said Steve Meyer, economist at consultancy Kerns & Associates.

Bill Lapp, president of consultancy Advanced Economic Solutions, said beef production capacity was down by 14 per cent.

Last week Tyson Foods, the largest US meat producer, closed two large pork plants in Indiana and Iowa and a beef plant in Washington as workers underwent testing. Two more US pork packers announced plant shutdowns on Friday, bringing the total to seven, Mr Meyer said.

‘‘You’re going to see tight supplies at grocery stores for some period of time if it stays like it is right now with that many plants being closed,’’ said Ron Prestage of Prestage Farms, which runs a pork plant in Iowa.

The bottleneck has meant that the price of pork destined for retailers has jumped, while that for live pigs has fallen sharply as sales to slaughterhouses have dropped significantly.

Wholesale pork prices have surged by more than half this month to $US77.48 per 100 pounds (45 kilograms) last Friday, according to the US Department of Agriculture.

Prices for pigs sold to plants fell to a 17-year low on Chicago’s futures market, reflecting falling demand from the packers, although they have since rebounded.

The Maschhoffs, a large Illinoisbased pig farming business, said shipments had fallen by about 20 per cent. ‘‘The meat supply is there,’’ said coowner Julie Maschhoff. ‘‘It’s just that the logistics of the food chain have [become] a little convoluted.’’

Plant outages have hit meat packers’ shares. Last week, Bernstein downgraded Tyson’s stock because of plant closures and the likelihood that many employees would not come to work, with shares down 5 per cent on the previous week.

Beyond Meat’s shares, on the other hand, rallied by more than 40 per cent last week, on the news of the plant closures and also an announcement from Starbucks that it was going to use the company’s plant-based protein in products in its Chinese stores.

Some plant-based protein companies have argued that the pandemic has underlined the links between public health and the consumption of animal meat, and given consumers a reason to switch to plant-based food.

However, Mr Prestage said he did not see plant-based meat substitutes as being ‘‘a real big game-changer’’.

‘‘Some people believe in the vegan agenda. That’s their right to do that, and they’re going to stick with it,’’ he said. ‘‘But I don’t think that it’s likely to significantly replace the great majority of Americans’ taste for real meat.’’