2 days Ago By Tlatham21
Next time you head to Argentina , you may find yourself asking, “Where’s the beef?” In a country long known for its love of meat , beef consumption is trending downward. In fact, last year Argentine beef consumption per capita dropped to its lowest level in more than a century, The Washington Post reported on Thursday, citing data from the Rosario Board of Trade. In 2024, that number sat at 104 pounds of beef per capita, down from a historical average of 157 pounds.
What are Argentines turning to instead? “The other white meat”—pork. Numbers suggest that Argentines are on track to have eaten more pork than ever before in 2024, the Post wrote. The consumption of fresh pork meat is outpacing that of chicken or processed pork products like chorizo, rising from about 19 pounds per person a year one decade ago to an estimated 37 pounds last year.
“The Argentine palate has changed,” Franco Ramseyer, a livestock economist at the Rosario Board of Trade, told the newspaper. Pork “is a cheaper, leaner alternative with a convincing flavor. So it’s no surprise that people are going to buy it more to replace beef.
” Part of the change may be due to shifting preferences, but it’s also a result of Argentina’s economic picture over the past year. With inflation hitting 300 percent in April, locals cut back at the grocery store and the butcher shop, The Washington Post noted. And while inflation has dropped since then, beef exports have risen without a similar increase in production, leading to still-high prices at home, a market analyst told the outlet.
Plus, Argentine President Javier Milei has been cutting government spending and federal subsidies, resulting in people cutting back even further. Despite Argentina’s embrace of the humble pig, the country still remains the most beef-consuming nation in the world. (Cattle actually outnumber the country’s 46 million residents.
) And locals don’t think that pork will ever surpass beef as the most beloved type of meat. But it’s clear that tastes are changing, and that businesses will have to adapt to accommodate that. “It used to be that [pork] was something we sold as an extra, the same way we did with coal for grilling,” the butcher Gonzalo Hernández told the Post .
“Now, pork is a main part of our business.” If you stop by a traditional Argentine asado, or barbecue, sometime soon, expect to see pork sharing space on the grill with steak ..
