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The retail sector in El Salvador has remained strong and stable, with new outlets opening and new online shopping options. Super Selectos is the largest supermarket chain, followed by Walmart which in January 2022 announced it is considering the sale of its outlet stores in El Salvador. Imports of U.S. consumer-oriented products reached a record-high of $267 million in 2021.

El Salvador’s coffee production is expected to reach 639,000 sixty-kg bags in marketing year (MY) 2021/22. The Salvadoran coffee sector continues to struggle mainly due to low international prices, climate change, continued coffee leaf rust, and a lack of a long-term strategy that has hindered investment at the farm level. The MY2022/23 crop is forecast to slightly decrease to 619,000 sixty-kg bags.

Improving international prices have eased the financial pressure exerted by the COVID-19 pandemic on the sugar sector, but inflationary concerns have led the government to include sugar among the products with import duties reduced to zero percent for a one-year period.

El Salvador’s food manufacturing sector has kept a fast pace in terms of increasing production levels. Food manufacturers took the challenging environment caused by the pandemic as an opportunity to evolve and add new items to their food lines.

The 2021 U.S. Agricultural Export Yearbook provides a statistical summary of U.S. agricultural commodity exports to the world.

This report provides initial analysis and a courtesy translation of El Salvador’s Transitory Law to Combat Price Inflation in Basic Products, published March 11, 2022, with an import duties comparison added for reference.

Despite the social and economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, Salvadorans have increased purchases of specialty food products and continue seeking new flavors and increased variety, demonstrated by the opening of new specialty food stores and new registrations of U.S. products during these unprecedented times.

In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, FAS El Salvador identified an opportunity to seek market access for U.S. table-eggs. In February 2021, FAS obtained the equivalence needed to allow imports of fresh table-eggs from the United States, and the first shipment arrived in El Salvador on October 20th, 2021.

During 2020, El Salvador imported a little over $632 million of agricultural products, which is a drop of 8 percent compared to 2019.

In El Salvador, there is no legal impediment to the use of biotechnology for food, feed, and processing. However, no GE crops are currently cultivated.

In El Salvador there is no specific food law. However, the Ministry of Health’s (MINSAL) Health Code is used to enforce food safety for all food and beverage products.

This report provides examples for the major export certificates and other documents required by the government of El Salvador for U.S. exports of food and agricultural products.