Problems and prospects of development of meat processing manufacturings in Ukraine

Abstract

Production of meat and meat products is one of the key segments of domestic processing industry. In 2018, its share in total food production in Ukraine reached 17.78% (vs. 15.93% in 2013). At the same time, the main problem holding back the development of this segment is the reduction of the raw material base for the industrial processing of meat due to the crisis in animal husbandry, especially in pig and cattle breeding. The purpose of the article is to define the problems and to outline the prospects for the development of meat processing manufacturing in Ukraine, given the current state of the domestic and foreign markets of meat raw materials (chicken, pork, beef, etc.). The meat and meat product manufacturing in Ukraine is dominated by poultry meat, which share has increased by 7.22 pp. in the last six years. Instead, the share of meat products decreased by 6.54 pp. These trends indicate the reduction of advanced processing of meat raw materials. This is largely due to the low level of operating profitability of meat product manufacturing in Ukraine – 2.6% in 2018 vs. 3.7% in 2013, while the profitability of poultry meat manufacturing reached 11.3% (vs. 9.1%). Given the latest global trends in changing consumer preferences in favor of dietary types of meat, this poultry development trend in Ukraine has great prospects, especially in regions where there are no large agricultural companies. In contrast to poultry farming, the trends in domestic pig breeding are mostly negative, due to the decrease in the number of pigs caused by outbreaks of African swine fever. An even more critical situation in Ukraine is with the production of beef and veal, which is a direct result of the cattle livestock population reduction by more than 6 times in the last 25 years, as well as of the high cost of meat procurement. The latter is caused by poor livestock feed base. To overcome this problem, it is necessary to increase the volume of domestic production of compound feeds and their components. In particular, a promising area for the development of meat processing in Ukraine is the production of animal origin feeds, the raw material for which is food waste. Integrated use of meat raw materials will ultimately increase the level of profitability of this segment of the processing industry.