With support from the National Pork Board, U.S. Meat Export Federation Chair Randy Spronk, a pork producer from Minnesota, recently got a first-hand look at the potential of the Indonesia market, with leadership from the Indiana soybean Alliance. Despite being a majority Muslim country, Spronk says there is strong potential for U.S. pork.

"You know if you really looked at it, you think, well, 200 and yeah, 75 - 280 million people, I believe it's 85 to 87% are Muslim. Kind of going well, you know, they're not going to have any pork products, but when you actually take the 17% remaining, it's 35 to 36 million people, and that's Canada. And so there's still a lot of opportunity," Spronk says.

"I think we were 1.13 kilograms per capita consumption. It reminds me of Colombia, where you were low teens per capita consumption, where you actually came in and doubled the consumption over a 10-year period. I think it's got great opportunity to be able to do that. I know we don't have a free trade agreement. Really we've only got a 5% tariff rate in there. Sure appears to me that there's quotas that they're artificially putting on from a government standpoint. But I think the opportunity is there for us, and we just need to be present. It's going to be a long term growth market in my mind."

Indiana soy growers have built strong relationships for providing protein in the market, and that could be beneficial for U.S. pork producers.

"Talking to the importer of the soybeans, they already have the logistics there to distribute soybeans to a multitude of islands to be able to have them process daily on each one of these items. That company was actually looking to get their beef import licenses. So I think that firm there has the logistics, has the infrastructure there," Spronk says. "You know, and Indiana Soy has the relationships here, and so I think there's great opportunities to be able to - you're already there with soybeans to actually grow the beef market here, to compete with Australia and Brazil. But I also think there's opportunities for pork products to be able to move into the country too here."

The U.S. pork market share in Indonesia has grown from 11.5% in 2023 to 38.5% in 2024, largely due to reduced supply from the EU.