Despite facing numerous challenges in the South African meat market, the United States filled almost 75 percent of the 2016-2017 quota, increasing beyond 100 percent for the 2017-2018 and 2018-2019 quota years.

This clearly shows that there is demand for U.S. chicken meat in South Africa. Even though South Africa is the region’s leading producer of chicken meat, imports are regularly required to supplement the demand unmet by local production (see Figure 1). In 2018,

South Africa imported about 521,500 tons of chicken meat, including 367,000 tons of broiler meat and 154,500 tons of mechanically deboned meat. Imports are an integral supplement in the South African market and account for about 30 percent of the total chicken meat consumption of 1.9 million tons in South Africa (see As Domestic Industry Recovers from Bird Flu, Poultry Imports Forecast to Increase Marginally).

According to Bureau for Food and Agricultural Policy, local chicken meat consumption is likely to rise by more than 27 percent over the next decade, with local chicken meat production increasing by only 17 percent over the same period. This suggests that the share of imports in total consumption will likely increase over the same period. For the 2019/2020 quota year, DAFF has indicated that the full volume will increase from 65,417 to 68,000 tons, making the second consecutive year DAFF increased the quota. Click to read USDA’s GAIN report.