Skip to content
Business
Link copied to clipboard

After a 17-year ban, Philadelphia port is receiving a premium import from Argentina

PhilaPort will receive one of the first shipments of Argentine lean beef after the U.S. lifted a 17-year ban following an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease.

Argentina is resuming exports of beef to the United States after being banned since 2001 because of an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease.
Argentina is resuming exports of beef to the United States after being banned since 2001 because of an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease.Read more

PhilaPort is set to receive some of the first beef imported from Argentina on Friday after the U.S. government lifted a 17-year-ban on meat from the South American nation after a 2001 outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease.

The Port of Philadelphia, which says it is the largest port for imported beef in America, will receive several tons of Argentine lean beef, primarily used for higher-end cuts and hamburgers. The shipment is coming in from Buenos Aires on a vessel operated by the Hamburg Sud line.

Argentina last year negotiated an agreement with the U.S. Department of Agriculture to resume meat imports, and inaugurated trade with a 1,100-pound shipment to Miami, according to trade publication GlobalMeatNews.com. Argentine will be allowed to export up to 22,000 tons a year to the United States, and U.S. producers can ship unlimited amounts of been to Argentina, though there is not expected to be much demand in that famous bovine-producing nation for U.S. beef.

Fernando Oris de Roa, the Argentine ambassador to the United States, is expected to greet the shipment at the Packer Avenue Marine Terminal, along with Jeff Theobald, executive director of PhilaPort, and Leo Holt, president of Holt Logistics, which operates the terminal.