Paranaguá terminal lifts beef exports by more than 50% after cold-storage expansion

Brazil’s Paranaguá Container Terminal (TCP) boosted beef exports by more than 50% in 2025 after completing a major expansion that included the construction of South America’s largest refrigerated container yard, the company said.

The terminal shipped 1.034 million tonnes of beef last year, up 53% from 675,000 tonnes in 2024. As a result, TCP’s share of Brazil’s total beef exports handled through ports rose to 29% from 23% a year earlier, reinforcing Paranaguá’s role as a key gateway for protein exports.

China was the destination for 58% of the beef exported via TCP in 2025, followed by the United States and Russia, each accounting for less than 7%. The terminal has been controlled since 2018 by China Merchants Port Holdings (CMPort), one of China’s largest port operators.

According to the company, the performance was driven by expansion works carried out between 2023 and 2024, with investments of 350 million reais ($68 million). The project increased refrigerated yard capacity by 45%, to 5,268 reefer plugs, allowing the terminal to gain market share and post successive records in meat and frozen cargo exports over the past year.

Despite the surge in beef shipments, poultry remained TCP’s main export cargo in the protein segment.

Below is the monthly volume of beef exports shipped through the Port of Paranaguá between January 2022 and November 2025. The data is sourced from Datamar.

Beef Exports – Paranaguá | Jan 2022 – Nov 2025 | TEUs

Source: DataLiner (click here to request a demo)

Chicken exports totaled 2.398 million tonnes in 2025, down 1% from 2024. The United Arab Emirates, South Africa and Japan were the main destinations. The slight decline reflected temporary import restrictions imposed by several countries after Brazil recorded its first and only case of avian influenza at a commercial poultry farm in May, in the southern city of Montenegro, Rio Grande do Sul, TCP said in a statement. All bans were later lifted, with China the last to do so, and December marked the highest monthly volume of chicken shipments since 2024.

Even with the disruption, TCP retained its leading position in Brazil’s poultry exports, handling 45% of national shipments, down one percentage point from 2024.

Meat and frozen products were TCP’s most significant cargo segment in 2025, totaling 3.822 million tonnes exported. The terminal is Brazil’s main export corridor for the segment, accounting for more than 35% of all national shipments of these products.

Overall, TCP handled 11.5 million tonnes of cargo in 2025, nearly 7% more than in 2024. Of this volume, 72%, or 8.29 million tonnes, was exported in more than 326,300 containers.

In addition to meat and frozen cargo, the terminal exported about 1.394 million tonnes of timber, 991,000 tonnes of paper and pulp, and 939,000 tonnes of other agribusiness products, among other commodities.

TCP also ranked as Brazil’s leading export corridor for beans and sesame seeds in 2025, handling more than 70% of national shipments of each product. Bean exports via the terminal rose 57% year on year to 425,000 tonnes, while sesame shipments jumped 151% to 365,000 tonnes.

Source: Globo Rural

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