In a collaborative effort, USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service, Foreign Agricultural Service and the U.S. Meat Export Federation (USMEF) recently published a revised list of beef cuts. The list now includes U.S. cuts, based on USDA standards, available for export to Chile under the existing Free Trade Agreement. The addition of the new cuts, listed next to their Chilean equivalent, will allow U.S. producers to send more products to Chile.
The U.S.-Chile Free Trade Agreement became effective January 1, 2004, and was the first such arrangement with a South American country. It provides America’s farmers, ranchers, food processors, and their businesses improved, and in many cases, new access to Chile’s market of 15 million consumers. The Free Trade Agreement calls for duty-free access on all products and addresses other trade measures for both countries.
As Chilean consumers start cooking with more U.S. meat, we hope that some of the new cuts will be added to their grocery lists and menus. Because Chilean beef cut names are set by law, the United States had to provide the name of each new cut along with the Chilean equivalent when developing the list. This should make it easier for Chilean consumers to see the similarity between the two countries’ products.
The revised list also includes an “eligible offal” list, which was not previously part of the Free Trade Agreement. This change adds items that may be delicacies in Chile but are not eaten in the United States – a new opportunity for U.S. producers. USDA hopes to add more beef cuts to the list in the future.
You can find the revised list of beef cuts on the AMS Livestock, Poultry and Seed Program Standardization Division website and on the Food Safety Inspection Service (FSIS) export library.
