Turkey’s white meat exports soar amid Russian sanctions against US-EU food imports

Turkey is expected to record a large increase in white meat exports to Russia this year, after Moscow applied a series of sanctions on food imports from the European Union and the United States, sector representatives said in a Nov. 6 press meeting.

“We expect to export some 450,000 tons of chicken meat this year, a 14 percent increase from last year. This is mainly because Russia has recently applied a series of sanctions on food imports from the U.S. and the EU, thus increasing demand for our products,” said Sait Koca, the head of the Association of White Meat Producers and Breeders Union (Besd-Bir).

“Before Russia’s decision for sanctions, our monthly export volume of white meat goods there was between 52-185 tons in the first half of the year. After Russia applied the sanctions against the U.S. and the EU, our monthly exports to Russia increased to 550 tons in July, 2,300 tons in August, 5,900 tons in September and 5,700 tons in October. Our exports have been rising rapidly to Russia. We expect to export some 150,000 tons of white meat to Russia overall in 2015,” Koca added.

Besd-Bir expects to earn around $725 million this year from its exports, a 12 percent of increase from 2013.

The sector has produced 1.275 million tons of white meat in the first eight months of the year, increasing the volume by 5.8 percent from the same period of 2013, according to the latest data from the Turkish Statistics Institute (TÜİK).  Sector representatives aim to reach 3.35 million tons of production volume by 2025.