US pork looks to surpass beef as most-produced meat

Chicago

IN the US, the country that made the hamburger a global icon of American fast-food cuisine, beef is about to fall another spot on the meat scale.

For the past two decades, chicken has outranked beef as the most-produced meat, and now pork is about to surpass it as well. Hog herds have rebounded from a deadly virus last year, while record-high meat prices and cheaper feed led to the breeding of more sows and bigger pigs. As pork output in 2015 jumps 4.6 per cent to a record, cattle ranchers have yet to recover from a 2012 drought, and beef production is headed for a 22-year low, the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) estimates.