Covid-19 Impact on Meat in the Food and Beverage Industry
The meat industry is largest segment of food industry. The growing demand for the high valued animal protein has brought an increasing pressure on the livestock sector since long. It has been observed that this sector is growing with unpredicted growth rate due to certain driving factor such as increase in population, rising income and increasing urbanization. According to WHO, the meat production is projected annually with an increase to 376 million tons by 2030 from 218 million tons in 1997-1999. But last year during starting year of 2020, pandemic crises started that has raise the question on the meat industry and the practices. The crises is not new to this industry because there were number of problems the industry has faced where its demand has fallen down and they were “Mad Cow” in 2005, SARS in the year 2003, and another in 2005 which was ”Bird Flu”. All these endemic and pandemic in last few decades have impacted the meat industry badly. Recently the COVID-19 has entered into the market and it has disrupted the meat market and pulled it in decreasing manner. This has majorly changed the consumer behavior, impacted the supply chain and also made international trade complicated. The major reason for such changes is lockdown in all countries across the world. In China, coronavirus has impacted the meat market badly during the lunar new year which is a peak season for the meat (red meat) consumption. Due to the lockdown of hit ports and the meat processing facilities by the government, it has not only disrupted the production of local meat but also affected the revenue generation of country due to lack in the import.
