Inventories down for beef, up for pork

By Lisa M. Keefe on 3/24/2008 for Meatingplace.com

Stocks of frozen meat are up overall, according to the monthly cold storage reports produced by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, as falling inventories for beef were offset by rapidly growing stocks of pork.

Year-over-year, beef stocks were down 9 percent to 418 million pounds at the end of February. Total pork stocks, meanwhile, at 603 million pounds, were up almost 25 percent in February over the same month a year earlier. Frozen pork belly stocks ballooned 68 percent to 79 million pounds, compared with the same month a year earlier.

Total red meat stocks were up from February 2007 to February 2008, ending the 12-month period up about 9 percent, to just over 1 billion pounds.