The Canadian Meat Council is taking issue with the highly-publicized prediction that meat prices will decline next year because Canadians are opting for more vegetables.
The council said “in fact, the beef demand index is strong, only showing a decrease of two per cent demand in 2018, but maintaining levels not seen since the late ’80s.
“Statistics Canada data shows that meat consumption by Canadians has decreased steadily between 2004 - 2015 – and not suddenly because of any specific dietary trends.”
Council president Chris White said “the report is misleading and makes assumptions that meat prices in Canada could go down because of demand and new market entries, when in fact many factors need to be considered.
“The global spike in meat prices in 2013-14 drove world wide meat production expansion. Increased supply has allowed prices to begin to decline across the world including in Canada.”
The pricing forecast was put out earlier this week by researchers at Dalhousie University and the University of Guelph.
Their report did not say that meat prices will decline, but that spending on meat will decline because people will be buying less.
