Source: Tom Johnston, MEATINGPLACE, 6/17/14


The 20th World Meat Congress kicked off here Sunday with optimism from a host country and guest nations eager to work together to better serve growing meat demand in China and other parts of the world.

The event, hosted by the International Meat Secretariat, looks to serve as China’s opportunity to demonstrate its willingness to partner with other nations’ meat industries to address a projected 60 percent increase in demand by 2050. But challenges remain in the form of continued improvements to China’s domestic industry and its policies on trade.

“This is a great opportunity for us to learn from other countries and to take our meat industry to a new level,” said Niu Dun, vice minister of China’s Ministry of Agriculture.

Increasing spending power in China is forcing the consolidation of a fragment meat industry into larger, more organized companies, the improvement of quality and food safety standards and the need for more foreign product. In 2013, China produced 85 million metric tons of meat, exported 1.06 million metric tons and imported 2.5 million metric tons, making it a net importer by nearly 1.5 million metric tons.

“This trend will continue in the future,” said Ge Zhirong, president of the China Entry-Exit Inspection and Quarantine Association, adding that the World Meat Congress affords a first-hand opportunity for China and other countries to learn and improve each other’s protocols and how they can address each other’s needs.

China’s government acknowledged this week, for example, that the country is in need of 1 million metric tons of beef, Phil Seng, president and CEO of the U.S. Meat Export Federation, told Meatingplace at the conference. And its food safety agency on Monday is sending a team to the United States to tour U.S. beef production systems in what is expected to be the next step in China removing a ban on imports of U.S. beef. 

China imposed the ban following the first U.S. case of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) in December 2003 and has maintained the policy despite the World Organization for Animal Health’s classification in May 2013 of the U.S. as a negligible risk for BSE.
In addition to addressing trade barriers, China’s meat industry has some more work to do. Meng Quinggo, president of the China Meat Association, said meat scarcity, meat quality and safety, and the industry’s structural readjustment are the three biggest challenges.

He said China is taking steps to be able to import more meat to feed its 1.3 billion people; major meat companies are leading the way in instituting technologies for improved food safety and quality, but the country still needs a long-term mechanism to assure the same for the entire supply chain; and between 2011 and 2013 the government shut down some 5,000 companies that weren’t up to par, but “this work is only halfway done.”

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