Delegation: Meet the Mexican Porcine Industry
Danish Industry, Danish Agriculture & Food Council, and the Danish Embassy in Mexico are inviting companies to join a delegation visit to Mexico with the aim of matching Danish brands with the largest Mexican companies within the porcine industry. The delegation will take place between 2nd – 6th September 2024.
The objective of the delegation is to match Danish companies delivering new solutions, know-how, and technology to the different parts of the meat sector in Mexico, engaged in primary production, abattoirs, processing, storage, logistics, etc.
The Mexican industry is increasingly consolidating, and the larger producers are vertically integrated from artificial insemination to distribution and even retailing. This indicates increasingly professionalized partners looking for state-of-the-art solutions. Denmark’s reputable brand, known for quality and efficiency, aligns well with Mexico’s trends favoring organic, healthy, and gourmet products – a promising fit for Danish companies.
Join the delegation if your company can provide below in various parts of the value chain:
- Genetic improvements
- Modernization of the industry
- Optimization of production processes
- Sustainable and biosecure solutions
The Delegation Program
Mexican companies invest heavily in solutions and new technology. Joining the delegation will give you targeted B2B meetings with 5-6 Mexican companies with upcoming investment plans. See the draft program here:
Daily Agenda
The Porcine Industry in Mexico
Mexico ranks as the world’s 7th largest pork producer, contributing 1.5% to global production. Porcine farming occurs across all Mexican states, but the top four states - Jalisco, Sonora, Puebla, and Yucatán – generate over half of the country’s total output. In 2023, Mexico produced 16 million metric tons of pork out of a global total of 122 million metric tons. National production increased from 21,700,000 heads to 22,075,000 in 2023, marking a 1.73% growth. Current trends suggest further acceleration in production during 2024, with an estimated 2.4% growth.
Meat, especially pork, is Mexico’s major export, valued at $2.91 billion in 2023. Similarly, the United States was the primary importer of Mexican meat with a value of almost $2 billion. However, Mexico experienced a significant decrease in exports in 2023, but forecasts estimate Mexican pork exports to increase during 2024, especially to Asian markets such as Japan and Korea.
Estimated domestic pork consumption reached 20.63 kilograms per person annually in 2023, totaling 2.65 million tons. Compared to 2022, this marks an increase of 4% in consumption and is expected to increase further in 2024. This growing demand and consumption reflect positively on the Mexican pork industry, leading to a renewed focus on enhancing pig genetics to boost exports and enhance local food security for the burgeoning middle class in Mexico.
SASA (Bachoco Group)
Sonora Agropecuaria (SASA) is a subsidiary of Mexico’s leading poultry processor Bachoco, dedidated to the industrialisation and commercialisation of pork. In February 2024, the producer announced their plans to continue expanding, including the permits for the disposal of a land of almost 900 hectares in San Luis Potosí (central Mexico), where only the warehouses for the animals will occupy a space of 54 hectares. The plant construction timeline is expected to kick off in H1 2024, and to last between 14 and 16 months. SASA has also expressed the company’s commitment to meet with all environmental protocols and regulations. Thus, the new plant will also have a system in place to ensure water optimisation and to avoid environmental impacts on water bodies nearby.
Website: https://en.bachoco.com/company/sasa/
Gena Agropecuaria
Founded in 1993, Gena Agropecuaria is a family-owned company located in Tepatitlán de Morelos, Jalisco (west central Mexico). The company produces live hogs, eggs and cattle. They also produce all the feed for their hogs in their own feed mills. Gena is one of the main live hog suppliers in Mexico. In 2014, Gena started slaughter operations, which has allowed them to use their own facilities exclusively to process livestock coming from their own farms. Meat by-products processing and transformation are part of Gena’s efforts for sustainable operations, producing food for other species. Poultry manure is similarly processed for bio fertilisers production, which can be used in different crops. Gena is also interested in minimising water consumption and ensuring farming systems with zero water effluents.
Granjas Carroll de México
With 18 farms distributed across the states of Veracruz and Puebla (southern Mexico), Granjas Carroll de México (GCM) are one of the main pig producers (approx. 10 % national production, according to corporate website). GCM was founded as a joint venture between Agroindustrias Unidas de México S.A. de C.V. and Smithfield Inc., the largest integrated pork company worldwide. GCM opened in 2019 its own slaughter plant, where it processes pig supply coming from its own farms. GCM is member of UN Global Compact. It has also ventured in clean energy generation (over 9 MW), through investment in natural gas plants and methane captured from their own lagoons.
Website (only available in Spanish): https://granjascarroll.com/quienes-somos/
Kekén
Kekén is a Mexican company, leading the pig production and commercialisation market, with a strong presence in Yucatán (southeast Mexico). Their operations are fully integrated, including feed mill plants, large-capacity farms (over 70, 000 sows), slaughterhouses and processing plants. Beyond domestic sales, Kekén is also significantly focussed on exports to markets such as Japan, South Korea, USA, Canada, Hong Kong and China. Kekén has an important agenda on sustainability, through the use of biogas, a sophisticated waste water treatment system, and the production of bio solids that can be used for crops. Kekén has established a programme to reach zero water discharge by 2025. In addition, Kekén has plans to join the Science-Based Targets initiative (SBT) to contribute to climate mitigation.
Website (only available in Spanish): https://keken.com.mx/
Grupo Mirasol
Grupo Mirasol de Occidente is one of the top 10 pig producers in Mexico, located in Jalisco since its foundation in 1980. Their core business is the production and commercialisation of live swine. As part of the pig production facilities, Grupo Mirasol has a Genetics Transfer Centre (CTG), as well as systems and technologies for slaughtering, cutting and deboning processes. Other business areas include feed production, livestock for fattening, feed production, and agave commercialisation. As part of their sustainable practices, Grupo Mirasol informs the use of solar heaters, as well as organic fertilisers generation through the use biodigestors in their pig sites.
Website (only available in Spanish): https://www.grupomirasol.com/index.php
PROAN
Proteína Animal (PROAN) is a family business dedicated to the production of egg, swine meat and dairy milk, with vertically integrated operations. Headquartered in Jalisco, PROAN’s sustainability efforts include wastewater recycling and the use of solid waste as organic fertilisers. Similarly, PROAN electrifies its facilities with biogas generated with the waste of their own pigs.
Website: https://proan.com/
