Food processors reduce operations due to lack of pork supply

Several food processor belonging to the Philippine Association of Meat Processors Inc. have downscaled their operations since January because of severe shortage and high cost of pork needed in their meat processing lines.

According to Francisco Buencamino Jr., executive director of the P40 billion a year meat processing industry which directly benefits 30,000 employees, said a lot of PAMPI members have reduced their operations by one shift because they find difficulty sourcing their raw materials, particularly pork, from local hog raisers.

"Pork prices have skyrocketed to P150 to P160 a kilo in the wet market, which is over P50 a kilo more than their prices last year," Buencamino said.

"How else can PAMPI members absorb these high costs so their option is to reduce their processing line. They just cannot continue passing on the higher cost to consumers because there is a limit to what the market can absorb," he said.

CDO Foodsphere Inc. president Jerome Ong confirmed this, saying his company is fortunate enough to be able to source from its regular and stable suppliers.

"What about the rest which do not have farm tieups? They have no choice but to reduce their production shifts or increase the prices, a very unpalatable decision to make," Ong said.

Consumers, he said, have also felt the tight supply and have shifted to other protein sources like chicken and fish, which because of shift increases in demand are also now experiencing tightness and a concomitant higher prices.

"Poor consumers, they either have to make do with higher prices or shift to canned meat that PAMPI members are producing. Otherwise, for the poorest members of society, the shift is towards noodles, which are not nutritious but can fill the stomach," Ong said.

The escalating pork prices and their tight supplies were traced to the high cost of farm inputs (principally feeds like yellow corn) which forced hog raisers to reduce production in the past months. The hog raisers, especially the backyard growers, have been asking the government for zero tariff on feeds to enable them to realize profits from their operations.

PAMPI members have recently figured in a verbal exchange with hog raisers, who have successfully won the sympathy of Agriculture Secretary Luis P. Lorenzo Jr. in their lobby against carebeef imports from India, which though non FMD-free "still complies with regulations on animal trade imposed by Paris-based Office Internationale des Epizooties, for so long as meat coming from it is being vaccinated," Buencamino said.

Hog raisers want a complete halt to carabeef importations but DA imposed strict regulations for meat importers to comply with prior to shipment.

Meat industry sources said PAMPI and two other groups, Pampanga Meat Processors (PAMPRO) an the National Hog Dealers Association, met with Lorenzo two weeks ago to ask that a public policy statement be made on:

• Importation of buffalo meat will continue for as long as it complies with the conditions set by the OIE in the OIE Terrestial Animal Health Code.

• There will be no arbitrary restriction on import volumes of buffalo meat for meat processors; further that if such restriction is resorted to for any valid reason, it should be based on the rated capacity of plants of qualified meat processors.