Trade wars may be heating up, but the Port of Oakland is seeing a cool opportunity to ship more meat.
The port, a major shipping hub for agricultural products, is expecting to boost beef, pork and poultry exports with a massive refrigerated storage facility called Cool Port Oakland. The $91 million depot is expected to lower costs and thereby draw more shippers.
The Port of Oakland saw a 43 percent increase in meat exports to Asia from October 2015 to October 2018. In the first 10 months of 2018, the port shipped 47,300 20-foot containers of meat to Asia, with Japan the top market, followed by South Korea and Taiwan.
The increase reflects what U.S. Meat Export Federation CEO Dan Halstrom calls a “meat boom” in those countries.
“You see a lot of different concepts catching on,” Halstrom said. “Smoked meat, barbecue, a lot of U.S. fast food, fast casual, white-tablecloth concepts.”
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