Argentine beef tallow exports reach 154,808 tonnes as US renewable diesel rewires demand

Exports of beef tallow from Argentina rose to 154,808 tonnes in 2025 from 6,819 tonnes in 2015, a more than twentyfold increase that turned a low-profile slaughterhouse by-product into one of the fastest-growing categories in the country's livestock complex. The 2025 shipments were worth $125.2 million, according to a report by the Rosario Board of Trade (BCR) cited by meatinfo.ru.

The report frames the change as demand-driven rather than supply-driven. Tallow is recovered during slaughter and cutting at meat plants, so domestic output tracks cattle throughput. Over almost fifteen years Argentine cattle slaughter rose 25 percent, while tallow exports rose 4,480 percent. The local market did not change, the BCR said; international demand did.

From soap and candles to refinery feedstock

"For centuries this fat had a predictable destination: soap, cosmetics, candles and animal feed. Mid-value markets, stable and with little competition," the BCR noted. That structure held until the past decade, when United States energy policy, in the BCR's words, "completely redrew the map of what had been a marginal market in agro-industrial trade." The report describes the result as a little-known by-product becoming one of the fastest-growing categories in the complex in just a few years.

Renewable diesel changes the demand curve

A significant renewable diesel industry developed in the United States from 2020. Energy Information Administration (EIA) data cited in the report put output at about 7.2 million barrels per year at the end of 2018 and 69.4 million barrels per year in 2025, with most of the increase concentrated in 2022 and 2023.

The processing route matters for feedstock demand. Unlike conventional biodiesel, renewable diesel is produced by hydrotreating and is chemically equivalent to fossil diesel, so it is not subject to blending limits. That widened the addressable market and made conversions of existing petroleum refineries viable, adding processing capacity and pulling substantial volumes of fats and oils into the fuel chain.

Beef tallow, which had previously competed in mid-price markets, entered the feedstock basket of that industry. US tallow consumption for biofuel production climbed from roughly 75,000 tonnes per month in 2021 to a peak of almost 450,000 tonnes per month by late 2025, growth of more than 720 percent in under five years.

The buyer map flips

Destination data in the BCR report show how quickly commercial flows reorganised:

• In the 2018-2022 average, the main buyers were the Netherlands and Brazil, with the United States accounting for a minor share of under 5 percent.
• In the 2023-2026 average, with the final year still incomplete, the United States took about 60 percent of total Argentine tallow exports.
• Uruguay accounted for roughly a quarter over the later period, while Brazil's share contracted markedly.

Supply cannot follow price

Volumes remain capped by slaughter, because tallow cannot be produced independently of cattle processing. The contrast between a 25 percent rise in slaughter and a 4,480 percent rise in exports sets the limit on how much additional product Argentina can place abroad if demand holds. The 2025 figures imply an average export value of about $810 per tonne.

Concentration is the corresponding exposure. With the United States moving from under 5 percent of Argentine tallow exports to about 60 percent, the category's price level now depends on one market's fuel policy and on continued refinery conversion activity. The traditional outlets described by the BCR, oleochemicals and animal feed, compete for the same volumes against energy-linked bids.