ARGENTINA-THE COOKED MEAT INDUSTRY FILLS VOID LEFT BY RUSSIA. IN THE ECONOMIC DOWNTURN.
The export trade in cooked meats from Argentina, keeps a floor price in the beef industry in the same manner as the live shipping in Australia.
Argentina began its history in the meat trade, by exporting cans of corned beef and jars of beef extract (The beef version of vegemite) in 1876, before the days of refrigerated shipping, that did not commence until in the early part of the Twentieth Century.
This cooked meat trade became vital in 1967, after the ban of Argentine carcass beef in England, owing to foot and mouth restrictions and again in 1973 when England joined the EEC, closing their beef market to Argentina.
With modern technology, the range of cooked meats exported from Argentina is far more varied than in those early days, with such products as beef broth, beef bone stock, tubes of roast beef for slicing or dicing, cooked primal cuts of beef for pies and pizza toppings, along with a range of minced beef canned or frozen for pie and pasta fillings.
The United States is the main market for cooked meats with a quota of 12,500 tons per year. The worlds largest soup maker Campbell Soup, in fact built and operated the worlds largest cooked meat complex in Rosario, Santa Fe, 400 kilometers from Buenos Aires in 1992.
With the latest in freezing technology and a whole range of meat recipe’s, Campbell’s introduce Argentina to a whole range of value added products. The plant today fills 75% of the United States cooked meat quota of 12,500 tons, as well as exporting to 70 other different countries.
The plant is today operated by the Brazilian beef giant JBS-Swift, who can slaughter 1,600 cattle per day on one shift and produce 100 tons of cooked from beef and 80 tons of canned beef on a daily basis. The company operates a second smaller plant in San Jose, 300 kilometers from Buenos Aires, that slaughters 3,000 cattle per week and produces a further 250 tons of cooked meats per month.
Rosario employs a staff of 2,000 and has a day care nursery as well as a fully equipped state of the art hospital. The dining room serves 1,750 cooked breakfast and lunch’s every day for the personnel. There is also a center for further education to assist staff with reading and writing difficulties.
There are numerous other very large players in the cooked meat industry ( you can find their web page address in the box at the end of this article) Quickfoods slaughtering 5,000 cattle per week, Cargill 4,000 cattle per week., Rafael 3,000 cattle per week, Sadowa 4,000 cattle per week and Molinos 4,000 cattle per week, the latter who specialize in the giant domestic market.
The boneless cooked meat is packed in plastic logs of between 10 and 15 kilos in weight. This meat is suitable for slicing or dicing and looks similar to the giant rolls of Devon in Australia, only beef rather than pork. The logs are then packed two or three to a carton and frozen ready for shipping.
With Individual Quick Freezing (IQF) techniques, much of this meat is now diced at the beef plants and packed in 10 kilo bags, retaining the flexibility of being in separate pieces meaning the end user, can remove what quantity he requires from the bag returing the bag to the freezer.
The mince beef is frozen in the same manner, which also remains simple and easy to separate, for the benefit of the end user. The beef sauces such as Bolognaise sauce are today packed in plastic sachets as well as the traditional tins.
There are various recipes of seasoned cooked beef, that are produced to order, along with a full range of Kosher and Halal products. The advent of the pizza, pasta dishes and Italian sauces, have been a large boost to the cooked meat industry.
Perhaps the most innovative development that was pioneered by Campbell Soup, which is the production of concentrates such as beef broth, that is packed in 250 kilo steel drums which are loaded four to a pallet for shipping. This product is also available for small caterers in 10 gallon plastic containers.
There is a huge demand for beef bone stock that is packed in the same manner, this is used as a base for soup manufacturers which maximizes the very last profit from the bones of the cattle processed.
The emergence of the hamburger trade, takes up all the access body fat from the meat plants, so there is no longer a trade for edible beef fat or dripping, that was used as a base for margarine for many years.
Frankfurters are a large business in Argentina, utilizing cooked beef as opposed to traditional pork as in Europe. This product takes up all of the left over meat and trimmings from the production of the cooked meats, as well as those from the conventional boning of beef for the frozen and chilled markets. This product is produced with raw meat until the meat is placed in synthetic casings, then they are cooked and vacuum packed, with a shelf life of 45 days.
Hot Dogs which are known as Panchos in Argentina, are very much a part of the culture and are served in the homes as a children’s favorite, as well as sold by hawkers at railway
stations, street corners and sporting events. Noticeably all the television advertising for frankfurters, is done during children’s programs.
Corned beef is still the main canned meat from Argentina, however today there is also a large trade in beef patty, that is packed in small round tins and used for a sandwich spread in the same way as paste years ago. This product in fact utilizes the same ingredients as the frankfurters yet retails at double the price, for merely being mixed to a finer texture and presented in a 2oz tin.
Ox tongues are all cooked and either canned or sold in logs for slicing, in the same manner as the cooked meat, there is a small portion of liver in used in liver pate. Argentina enjoys an enormous trade in blood puddings on the domestic market, which are traditionally served on the family Assado or barbeque.
The cooked meat industry that began in 1876 as means to get beef extract, has come a long way. The corned beef was initially a by product of the beef extract yet later became the main product. Today even the goodness from the marrow in the bones is utilized as well as the blood. The only part of the cow that is not utilized in the Moo.
Marketing cooked meats from Argentina creates no problems, as for the last 10 years the insatiable demand for manufacturing beef from Russia, has taken the lions share of the raw material, leaving the cooked meat sales to be rationed. The global economic downturn has brought Russian exports to a standstill, so once again the cooked meat trade is the backbone of the Argentine beef industry.
The best of the cooked primal cuts go to the United States and Canada, along with the stocks and broths for the manufacture of soups. The corned beef and beef extract is mainly exported to the United Kingdom, as well as the other 26 counties in the European Union. There has been an increased trade in canned meats in the Caribbean and Africa, in the last ten years.
Until 10 years ago, all the manufacturing cows in Argentina went into the cooked meat industry. The global demand for hamburgers as changed this, as every large beef plant now has a burger processing department. The down side of cooked meats is that you lose 40% of the weight in cooking, you also have to remove all the fat.
With the manufacture of burgers you lose no weight, in fact you add all the surplus fat that is trimmed from primal cuts on the boning hall. Having said this the global demand for cooked meats exceeds the supply. Argentina is in a sellers market fifty two weeks of the year, today the cooked meat industry has compe
