​The worst-ever outbreak of highly pathogenic avian influenza continued, with the virus affecting flocks in the U.S. and abroad. 
United States
On Feb. 21, the USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service announced an HPAI outbreak in a commercial broiler production flock in Lancaster County, Pa. The USDA stated that 97,700 birds were affected, and the outbreak is still considered active.
That is the third commercial broiler outbreak so far in 2023. On Jan. 20, a detection in Weakley County, Tenn. affected 267,800 birds, and a Feb. 7 outbreak in Leake County, Miss. affected 89,800 birds. 
Canada
Like the U.S., Canada is also grappling with historic HPAI outbreaks. According to the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, approximately 7.2 million domestic birds in Canada have been affected in the last year, with 3.7 million cullings in British Columbia alone. The Globe and Mail notes that more than $82 million has been paid, to date, as compensation for cullings. 
South America, Caribbean cases
HPAI was recently declared "endemic" by world health experts, and the virus has continued its spread to other countries.
In the last week, both Argentina and Uruguay confirmed their first cases among wild birds, according to Poultry World. Currently, Brazil, Guyana, and Suriname are the only South American countries without detections. Argentina’s secretary of Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries, Juan José Bahillo, blamed migratory birds for the country's detection; the secretary called an emergency meeting to address matters.
Additionally, WATT cited WOAH reports that three birds at Cuba's Jardín Zoológico de La Habana zoo in Havana died from HPAI. The detection resulted in the culling of 82 birds in the zoo's area.

Positive customer engagement can build long-lasting connections between customers and your brand. However, if you're not doing it right, customers will disengage, negatively affecting your overall revenue. Click here to read the full article. 

The burgeoning influence of Generation Alpha, whose oldest members will start hitting their teens this year, will have a growing effect on food trends in the coming years, Datassential's Samantha Des Jardins writes. Other factors expected to drive food trends in 2023 include artificial intelligence, greater risk-taking with menus, and a broadening of the definition of "third place" as more people shift to working from home.
Datassential, the leading food and beverage insights platform connecting the dots between consumers and the food industry, has unveiled the tentpole themes and macro trends that will impact the food industry in the coming year. Click here to read the full article. 

Higher ingredient costs will continue to plague restaurant operators in 2023, forcing them to streamline menus, according to several foodservice industry experts. Click here to read more. 

Historic storms have hammered California for more than two weeks, causing widespread flooding, road closures, power outages and evacuations in numerous counties.
As the state received roughly five times its average rainfall, the deluge offered water relief for drought-stricken farmlands. But the storms also inflicted a harsh toll on agriculture. Click here to read the full article. 

Even with eggs in short supply nationwide and prices climbing to new heights, it has not been enough to keep a 100-year-old egg farm from going out of business.
John Lewis Jr., president of Farmer John Egg Farm in Bakersfield, confirmed that the family operation will close its doors by the end of the month. The move comes as commercial poultry farms across the country have been pummeled by avian influenza, which has led to bird losses topping 57 million and shoppers facing sticker shock on eggs. Click here to read the full article. 

The worst outbreak of avian influenza on record is threatening to stretch into a second year, as the U.S. races to contain a virus that has already caused some food prices to soar amid a shortage of eggs.
Nearly 58 million birds from commercial and backyard flocks have been wiped out in the U.S. since last February, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service. Click here to read the full article. 

High prices are driving an increase in attempts to bring eggs into the US from Mexico, according to border officials. Officers at the San Diego Customs and Border Protection Office have seen an increase in the number of attempts to move eggs across the US-Mexico border, according to a tweet from director of field operations Jennifer De La O. Click here to read the full article. 

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As the U.S. poultry industry continues to contend with the nation’s worst outbreak of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) ever, experts are weighing in on the difficulties of trying to contain the bird-killing virus.
“This is the largest animal emergency that the USDA has faced in this country,” Gino Lorenzoni, an assistant professor of poultry science and avian health at Pennsylvania State University, told NBC News.
Efforts to prevent infections in commercial and backyard flocks are particularly difficult in that HPAI infections can come from wild birds. In addition to direct exposure, fecal matter can contaminate the grounds around farms and yards, the story published Thursday noted.
The USDA on Thursday announced a notice of intent to prepare an environmental impact statement for HPAI in the U.S., with the agency’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) requesting public comment to define its scope. The agency said it would consider all comments received on or before Feb. 17.
As of Thursday, the government’s tally included confirmed HPAI infections in 732 commercial and backyard flocks, affecting 57.87 million birds since February 2022. The latest infection was confirmed Wednesday in Lampasas County, Texas, according to APHIS.

Chickens may not be able to fly very far, but the price of eggs is soaring. A lingering bird flu outbreak, combined with soaring feed, fuel and labor costs, has led to U.S. egg prices more than doubling over the past year, and hatched a lot of sticker shock on grocery aisles. Click here to read the full article. 

The number of U.S. restaurants — including chain franchises and independents — is still meaningfully lower than what it was before the advent of COVID-19. Click here to read the full article. 

Here’s a sobering statistic: Even if every single unemployed person in the country takes a job, there would still be more than 5 million unfilled positions according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The foodservice industry, a bit of a jobs powerhouse with a corps of nearly 15 million workers, has historically high turnover rates, a situation further complicated by the tight, post-pandemic jobs market. ​Click here to read the full article. 

Highly pathogenic avian influenza continued its destruction of U.S. commercial and backyard flocks in the final days of 2022. The latest tally from the USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service had five outbreaks confirmed last week in four states: Kansas, Michigan, Tennessee and Washington.
The largest recent outbreaks involve two commercial broiler breeder producers in Tennessee’s Weakley County, and affected a total of 62,600 birds between them. Confirmed HPAI detections in 2022 include 306 commercial and 411 backyard flocks in 47 states, affecting 57.82 million birds, the federal agency said Wednesday in its last update.  
According to APHIS, commercial and backyard flocks in just three states — Hawaii, Louisiana and West Virginia — have been spared amidst the deadliest HPAI outbreak in U.S. history. The last major HPAI outbreak in the U.S. occurred in 2015, when 50.5 million chickens and turkeys perished. 
The ongoing scourge of HPAI is a global issue, with Japan and the Czech Republic among the nations reporting massive culling efforts in recent weeks. Outbreaks were also reported in Mexico and Canada during the month of December. 

​William W. Wilson, an expert in risk management and trading at North Dakota State University, predicted increased volatility in the U.S. grain market throughout 2023.
Part of the reason commodity prices rose so sharply, Wilson explained, is transportation rates are much higher for alternative grain shipping routes out of Ukraine, according to a report in Feed & Grain. Rail routes that traditionally went to Odessa now route through Romania, Poland and Moldova, which adds as much as $125/metric tonne to costs.
“Unblocking exports by sea will significantly strengthen the stability of the economy and alleviate the acuteness of the food crisis, but only under the condition of stable export of six million tonnes of grain per month at least until March 2023,” Wilson said.
Rising grain prices due to both the war in Ukraine and disappointing harvests in the US, Europe and Asia, are compounding challenges producers already face from global supply chain disruptions and labor and energy costs.
Wilson, who studies grain marketing as well as logistics and supply chain systems, offered his comments during the closing general session of the National Grain and Feed Association’s 2022 Country Elevator Conference in December 2022. 

Inflation has hit all parts of the economy, with the evidence in your grocery bill. For one item, however, there’s one factor that’s having a big effect. Avian flu is hitting farms hard, with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimating nearly 58 million commercial and backyard birds were affected in the past year across the country. Click here to read the full article.  

​The choice beef cutout has spiked in the past few days, partly due to significant disruptions at feedlots brought about by recent extreme winter weather. The supply of cattle with more than 120 days on feed on Dec. 1 already was the lowest inventory of market-ready cattle on that date since 2018, estimated to be 76,000 head smaller than the previous year, analysts at the Daily Livestsock Report said in an analysis published today.
"Add to this the stress of winter weather and availability suddenly plummets," the analysts wrote. Extreme cold negatively impacts cattle in feedlots as livestock burns more energy to stay alive. 
The recent storm significantly affected the movement of cattle from feedlots to processing plants, plants’ ability to bring workers in, and the movement of beef from processing plants from the middle of the country to metropolitan areas, the DLR said. Fed cattle slaughter was 15% lower for the week of Dec. 19 than two weeks prior.
But with supply needed for the meat case and to run further processing plants, the rib primal value on Tuesday was $548/cwt, the highest for the year, at a time when prices of bone-in and boneless ribeyes typically decline, after Christmas orders have been filled.
"Why are people paying that kind of price? Because they are short and when you need to fill orders in a market where supply is thin you end up paying whatever it takes to outbid the other guy," the analysts said. "So here we are with likely less supply of market-ready cattle for January in feedlots, more weather stressed cattle and more beef booked for delivery. Spot buyers/traders woke up to this reality during the Christmas week storms and may feel the effects of tight supplies well into January."

Highly pathogenic avian influenza’s assault on the poultry industry continues, with new outbreaks reported in the U.S. and across the Mexican and Canadian borders. The USDA’s Animal Plant and Health Inspection Service on Thursday confirmed outbreaks in Colorado, Idaho, Oregon and South Dakota during the past two days. That includes a commercial turkey operation with 31,800 birds in Hanson County, S.D., and 239,700 egg-laying hens in Colorado’s Weld County.
The 2022 tally currently stands at confirmed infections in 708 commercial and backyard flocks in 47 states, impacting 57.69 million birds, according to the agency.
The Huron Perth Public Health agency in Ontario recently reported HPAI was identified in live poultry delivered to a commercial processing plant. “The Canadian Food Inspection Agency, along with the Huron Perth Public Health, the Ministry of Health and Public Health Ontario are working together with the plant operator to respond to the situation,” HPPH stated.
Operations at the plant — identified by the London Free Press as operated by Sofina Foods — resumed on Monday, officials said. HPAI is also striking across the southern border, with the virus confirmed in 17 commercial poultry flocks in Mexico, according to the World Organisation for Animal Health.

Weather conditions and pest pressures in California, Florida and Mexico combined to create elevated vegetable fob prices in 2022, and a USDA report says higher prices may persist until at least early January. Click here to read the full article. 

After two years of pandemic-restricted service, chefs and restaurateurs were eager to ramp up menu innovation in 2022. Then the industry was hit with a triple whammy.
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Four new cases of bird flu at Iowa turkey farms in the past few days will push the number of birds slaughtered nationwide this month to limit the spread of the virus up to nearly 700,000.The latest cases announced by the Iowa Department of Agriculture only add to the toll of this year's ongoing outbreak that has prompted officials to kill more than 53 million birds in 47 states. Anytime the virus is found, the entire flock is killed to help control the disease.
Click here to read the full article.