CHICAGO: US meat shipments to Japan continued after the devastating earthquake and tsunami, and longer-term the damage there could mean an increase in meat sales to that country, officials with two of the largest U.S, meat companies said on Wednesday.

"We have not seen a slow up in our Japanese sales at this point," Bo Manly, chief financial officer at Smithfield Foods Inc, said during a webcast of Wednesday's presentation at the J.P. Morgan Protein Conference in New York.

Japan is buying more chilled meat rather than frozen, an indication there is a need to quickly supply meat to retail stores, he said.

It will take time for Japan to recover and that should mean more meat sales while the rebuilding takes place, said Manly.

At the same conference, Tyson Food Inc earlier had said the earthquake and tsunami likely damaged meat production in Japan, which should increase the need to import meat.

"There may be some demand destruction but there clearly was some supply destruction as well," said Jim Lochner, Tyson's chief operating officer.

"We expect that Japan probably will maintain or potentially, in the short run, increase its import of protein."

Japan has been a leading buyer of US meat, and in 2010 was the No. 1 export market for US pork and No. 3 market for US beef.