The Cuba Thaw Will Be Big for America's Frozen Chickens

Poultry producers see a familiar, hungry, and very convenient market—once trade restrictions are eased.

Less than 100 miles off the U.S. coast sits an island nation that can’t feed itself. Cuba, which imports as much as 80 percent of its food, has developed a huge appetite for American chicken, despite the decades-long trade embargo. That's why few businesses are quite as excited about normalized relations as poultry producers in Georgia, Alabama, and Arkansas.

Chicken is one of Cuba’s top imports, and an exemption to the embargo for agricultural products has made the country the fifth-largest export market for U.S. poultry producers. Over the past 15 years, more than $1 billion of U.S. poultry—nearly all of it frozen legs and thighs—has been packed aboard cargo ships for the short journey to Cuba. Much of the chicken departs from ports in Jacksonville, Fla., Mobile, Ala., New Orleans, and Savannah, Ga.

“They can place an order on a Monday and probably have the product on a Friday, if they need it,” said Jim Sumner, president of the USA Poultry and Egg Export Council in suburban Atlanta. “If they buy it from Europe or Brazil, it’s going to be 20 to 30 days.”

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