Alberta beef is now available at your local Costco in Mexico.
Agriculture and Food Minister Heath McDonald attended a ribbon-cutting ceremony Wednesday in front of a refrigerator filled with Porterhouse, New York Prime and other cuts of Alberta beef at a Costco in an upscale suburb near the western outskirts of Mexico City.
“Days like today open the door to the future, and we will no doubt see it grow,” McDonald told CBC News after the event.
“The partnership is there, you can see it, you can feel it and you can feel it.”
The recent agreement between JBS Canada and Costco Mexico already sees about 20,000 tonnes of beef processed in Brooks, Alta., shipped to 41 Costco locations across Mexico.
Salvador Hernandez, director of JBS Mexico, said the Costco deal provided Canadian beef with a “new frontier” in a market dominated by U.S. beef.
“Today marks an important milestone not only for JBS, but for the entire North American beef supply chain,” he said.
It took JBS Canada about a year to finalize the deal, which included representatives from Costco Mexico visiting the Brooks processing plant, according to Claudia Herrera-Blanc, senior director for Mexico and Latin America at industry group Canada Beef.
“Costco is the standard for quality in Mexico. We've been looking for this for a long time, and Costco has finally opened the doors,” Herrera-Blanc said.
Fresh boneless beef is Canada's fourth largest export commodity to Mexico and is subject to the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA).
Pet food ban lifted in Canada
Alberta Prime joins other Canadian products on Costco Mexico shelves, including maple syrup, rolled oats, ice wine and chicken nuggets. A spokesperson for the Costco store where the beef was announced said the store sold about $60,000 (or $84,000 Canadian) worth of Canadian product each week.
Wednesday's announcement marked the second win for Canadian beef producers since McDonald touched down for a week of meetings in Mexico.
Following a meeting Tuesday between MacDonald and Mexico's Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development. Julio Berdegue Sacristan, Mexico's cabinet, announced that his country would also lift a roughly 18-month import ban on Canadian pet food made from bovine meal.
“I told the minister that at any time we will adopt a protocol to facilitate the importation of pet food so that Mexican families can feed their small animals very high quality Canadian products,” Berdegue Sacristan said.
Mexico does not produce enough pet food to meet domestic demand. Mexico imported about $402.7 million cost of pet food in 2024. Canada currently has about 0.5 per cent of the country's market share, according to Agriculture Canada.
McDonald said talks with his Mexican counterpart also included the introduction of digital phytosanitary certificates to avoid any obstacles to trade in organic products such as wheat and canola.
“This could have a major impact on how quickly we can trade,” he said.
Phytosanitary certificates are provided by the exporting country to the importing country to ensure that organic products are free from disease and comply with the regulations of the importing country.
“People want to do business, they want to build relationships, they want to diversify,” McDonald said.
MacDonald is in Mexico for a series of meetings, including a trip to the city of Guadalajara in Jalisco state, until Friday.
