How large are Guatemala's food and beverage industry and food service, and where do imported inputs come from (2024)?

USDA's Food Processing Ingredients Annual 2025 (March 20, 2025, 2024 data) describes the food and beverage subsector as about 47.7 % of Guatemala's industrial GDP and the leading export sector in 2024; meats,… baked goods and dairy dominate the domestic market. Food service exceeded 5.3 billion dollars in 2024, about 5 % of GDP, with some 18,000 restaurants providing 400,000 jobs and annual household spending on hotels and catering near 1,632 dollars. Agricultural imports from the United States were 1.9 billion and Guatemala's agricultural exports to the United States 2.9 billion; in consumer-oriented imports the United States supplies 29 %, Mexico 17 %, Costa Rica 14 %, El Salvador 9 %, Honduras 5 % and the rest of the world 26 %. Advantages the post cites: supermarket expansion demanding imported ingredients, processors' greater capacity since CAFTA-DR and two-ocean logistics; challenges: neighbouring suppliers (El Salvador, Mexico) with lower prices, non-compliance so far with the standards to export meats to the United States, port congestion and a price-sensitive market outside the capital.