Pork stockpiles in the U.S. were 6.7 percent higher on March 31 than a year earlier, the government said. Beef supplies were the highest ever for the date.
Warehouses held 612.7 million pounds of pork at the end of March, up from 574.4 million on March 31, 2011, the U.S. Department of Agriculture said today in a report. Inventories fell 1.6 percent from the end of February. Beef supplies rose 14 percent from a year earlier to 507.9 million pounds, breaking the record for the date set in 1977, the USDA said.
U.S. commercial pork output in the three months through March 31 totaled 5.858 billion pounds (2.7 million metric tons), up 2.4 percent from 2011, government data show. Wholesale pork prices, a gauge of demand, fell 5.8 percent in March, the sixth straight monthly decline, according to the USDA.
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