Management of Meat Inventories

Abstract

Data on cold storage holdings as presented in Table 1 indicate the importance of different forms in which meat is held and permit a distinction as to whether holdings are pipeline or seasonal.l Pork accounts for by far the largest amount of inventories, both pipeline and seasonal. The crucial inventory seasonally is frozen pork. Although there is considerable variation in the relative importance of the different kinds of meat, the seasonal movements are similar in many respects. The minimum inventory of pork items occurs about the first of November, while the minimum for beef items is typically somewhat earlier. On the other hand, beef inventories reach their maximum more rapidly than pork inventories. Lamb, mutton and veal have seasonal patterns similar to beef. Seasonal accumulation of inventories provides a substantial, but far from complete, cushion to variations in meat production. Figure 1 illustrates this point. It shows meat production from slaughter under federal inspection by months and, subtracting change in inventories, the implied consumption.2 The average monthly deviation for total meat is 152.1 in the production series and 67.0 in the consumption series. According to this measure,