World chicken meat market - its development and current status

Abstract

The global meat market and primarily the chicken meat market represents a very dynamically developing area. The objective of the present article is the analysis of the chicken meat market in the world in order to identify the basic development trends associated with the development of production of and trade in chicken meat, and also in order to identify the individual entities controlling the global chicken meat market. In methodological terms, the article analyzes the development of production of, consumption of and trade (export and import) in chicken meat in the years 1961-2009. The main sources of data necessary for the processing of the individual analyses are the FAOSTAT and UN COMTRADE databases. The results of the conducted analysis show the following findings. World production of poultry meat increased from 7.5 million tons to more than 86 million tons. The global market reacted in a flexible manner, in which there was an increase in volumes of executed trade from 271 thousand tons/year in the year 1961 to more than 10.7 million tons/year in the year 2010. Further, the value of world trade in chicken meat within the analyzed period increased from approximately USD 169 million to approximately USD 16 billion. If we analyze the global chicken meat market, it may be stated that it is very concentrated. The analysis of the global market further shows that Brazil, the USA and China represent, in terms of global production, consumption and trade, the main driving force on the chicken meat market. These three countries have a share in global production of approximately 46%, their share in global consumption ranges at a level of over 40%. The share of these countries in global export ranges at a level exceeding 50%.