The chart below shows the monthly totals for the four major species and the data for all species and all cuts appear in the table on page 2 (please see link below).

Some quick highlights:

• Total frozen meat and poultry stocks amounted to 1.928 billion pounds, still very close to their lowest levels since 2003 and only 11.7 million pounds higher than on 28 February.
  
  
• Chicken inventories fell to 619.9 million lbs, 1.3 per cent lower than last month and 2.5 per cent below last year – and their lowest levels since May 2007 in spite of extremely small exports to Russia in January and February. Leg quarter inventories did fall by 4.7 per cent in March. The most noteworthy contributor to lower chicken inventories, were breasts and breast meat at 8.2 per cent and 19.5 per cent lower for the month and year, respectively.
  
  
• Pork inventories fell by 5.5 million pounds or just over one per cent in March. That is unusual as pork stocks usually grow until April or May before declining with seasonally lower pork output. A decline in March and then the short slaughter weeks of the past two weeks point to the potential that pork inventories could fall sharply by May1. Unclassified pork, other pork, trimmings and bellies and hams accounted for the largest tonnage declines versus last year. Ham stocks were 27.7 per cent lower for the month.
  
  
• Beef inventories of 390.5 million pounds were 3.5 per cent lower than last month and 8.3 per cent lower than last year – and were at their lowest levels July 2005 as of 1 April. The amounts of both frozen boneless beef and beef cuts were eight per cent lower than last year. Of course, eight per cent for boneless beef is 30 million pounds where eight per cent for beef cuts is 5.3 million pounds.

Further Reading

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You can view the full report by clicking here.