Overseas meat suppliers struggle to keep up with rising Chinese demand

In 2013 Sophie Wang had one of her best years yet. Arranging the export of 45,000 live cows to China, her firm accounted for over half of Australia’s cattle livestock sales to the mainland and helped feed a growing hunger for meat, milk and infant formula products in the world’s most populous country.

The managing director of Landmark Global Exports, an Australian livestock export handling company, she wishes she could sell more. “It is not because demand is not there, it is because supply is not there,” said Wang.

Amid steady urbanisation and rising wealth, a healthy appetite for meat and dairy products from Chinese households is a boon for global livestock breeders looking for new markets.

Underpinning this trade has been a dramatic change in the Chinese diet. According to the country’s National Bureau of Statistics, per capita meat consumption has doubled while per capita dairy consumption has trebled in the past three decades.

Demand for meat is now expected to level off at 2 per cent annual growth though prices will increase at 10 per cent per annum over the next decade as a desire for safer, premium meat continues to grow, wrote analysts at Netherlands-based Rabobank in a research report.

Like most countries, China relies on imports for some of its food products. Animal products and livestock imports from the European Union last year totalled US$2.8 billion, having more than doubled in three years, according to the National Bureau of Statistics. Imports from Australia trebled during the same time to US$1.6 billion.