Ireland produced a significant amount of the corned beef in the Atlantic trade from local cattle and salt imported from the Iberian Peninsula and southwestern France. Coastal cities, such as Dublin, Belfast and Cork, created vast beef curing and packing industries, with Cork producing half of Ireland's annual beef exports in 1668. Although the production and trade of corned beef as a commodity was a source of great wealth for the nations of Europe, in the colonies the product was looked upon with disdain due to its consumption by the poor and slaves.
Corned beef became a less important commodity in the 19th century Atlantic world, due in part to the abolition of slavery. Corned beef production and its canned form remained an important food source during the Second World War. Much of the canned corned beef came from Fray Bentos in Uruguay, with over 16 million cans exported in 1943. Today significant amounts of the global canned corned beef supply comes from South America. Approximately 80% of the global canned corned beef supply originates in Brazil.
In Israel, a canned corned beef called Loof was the traditional field ration of the Israel Defense Forces until the product's discontinuation in 2011. The name Loof derives from "a colloquially corrupt short form of 'meatloaf.'" Loof was developed by the IDF in the late 1940s as a kosher form of bully beef, while similar canned meats had earlier been an important component of relief packages sent to Europe and Palestine by Jewish organizations such as Hadassah.