Source: Vietnamnet.vn
On the morning of March 7, Mr. Phung Van Tien (employee of an imported meat warehouse in Hanoi) reviewed the quantity of products before sending quotes to the collective kitchens that this unit is distributing. He said that the price of some imported meat products decreased so he had to report it to the contact.
For example, a whole Korean tough chicken a day ago was priced at 47,000 VND/kg (head and feet removed), now the price has dropped to 43,000 VND/kg. Or like pork bones from 27,000 VND/kg reduced to 25,000 VND/kg.
The warehouse where Mr. Tien works is distributing hundreds of imported pork, chicken, buffalo, and beef products. Among them, chicken products are quite cheap, commonly priced at 40,000-50,000 VND/kg; Pork prices range from 25,000-85,000 VND/kg.
“This price is very cheap compared to domestically produced products of the same type,” Mr. Tien said. Therefore, imported meat is a popular ingredient in collective kitchens and popular restaurants.
Preliminary statistics from the General Department of Customs show that in January this year, Vietnam spent 127.5 million USD to import nearly 62,440 tons of meat and meat products. Compared to January 2023, imported meat increased by 76.2% in volume and 72% in value.
Vietnam meat import and meat products from 37 markets around the world. Types imported into our country mainly include: meat and edible post-slaughter by-products of fresh chilled or frozen poultry; fresh frozen buffalo meat; Edible post-slaughter by-products of chilled or frozen live pigs, buffaloes and cows; fresh chilled or frozen pork; Fresh chilled or frozen beef…
In 2023, Vietnam imports 717,000 tons of meat and meat products from 57 markets, worth 1.43 billion USD, an increase of 5.4% in volume and a decrease of 3.9% in value compared to 2022.
Discuss with PV.VietNamNet Regarding imported meat, Dr. Nguyen Xuan Duong – Chairman of the Vietnam Livestock Association, exclaimed: “In the past 2-3 years, the amount of livestock products imported into our country has increased tremendously.”
According to him, Vietnam has been importing meat products for many years. Worth mentioning, the number of official imports is increasing, while smuggled goods are still flooding in.
He cited that in the past, pork imports had never exceeded 5,000 tons/year. Now the imported volume is up to nearly 300,000 tons of jaws/year, equivalent to nearly 400,000 tons of live pigs, accounting for over 10% of domestic pork production. Not to mention, the number of pigs imported through quota is unknown.
Similarly, poultry previously imported only 80,000-90,000 tons/year, now it is about over 250,000 tons/year, equivalent to about 350,000 tons of live weight. In fact, imports account for 25-27% of domestic production.
In addition, imports of buffalo and cow meat also increased sharply. Not only importing meat and by-products of hooves, hearts, organs… in frozen form, the amount of live cows imported from Australia is about 500,000 per year for fattening and slaughtering. A large number of buffaloes and cows imported through quota cannot be counted. Accordingly, the amount of imported buffalo, cow, sheep and goat meat accounts for over 60% of the market share.
Mr. Duong also emphasized that our country is importing a lot of waste livestock products from other countries for food. Typically, discarded laying hens (chickens at the end of their egg production cycle) that are not used for food in Thailand and Korea are exported to Vietnam for only 20,000 VND/chicken. Returning to the border, the price is about 40,000 VND/head and sold on the market for 50,000-60,000 VND/head.
“This type of chicken has chewy and crispy meat like Vietnamese chicken, suitable for Vietnamese consumption tastes. The import price is so cheap that it becomes a very profitable product,” he said. Or like the by-products of gizzards, legs, necks, wings, chicken skin… in other countries they consider them as by-products, but they bring them back to us as food.
According to Mr. Duong, laying hens have a fairly long egg exploitation cycle. During the process of raising chickens, they are injected with many types of vaccines, antibiotics… to prevent and treat diseases. Therefore, in the chicken’s body there are often many drug residues, making it unsafe to use as food.
Similar to poultry, officially imported pork products are mostly by-products of slaughterhouses such as internal organs, meat, feet, etc. In addition, a large volume of live pigs are imported under quota ( smuggled) about 7,000-10,000 fish/day but the quality is unknown.
Currently, there are about 7,000-10,000 animals smuggled into our country every day. There are types of pigs selling at this time at the border gate for only about 25,000-30,000 VND/kg. He questioned the quality of imported pigs, even at cheap prices, they were just sick.
Mr. Duong said that poor quality foods, which are secondary products when imported and used as food, will definitely affect the health of users. As for the livestock industry, massively imported goods make it difficult to control epidemics. Not to mention, it is difficult for domestic livestock to compete with cheap imported products.
In fact, in recent years, the livestock industry has struggled. Pig and poultry farmers continuously suffer heavy losses. Even buffalo farmers used to sell for 25-30 million VND/head, but now only 12-15 million VND/head – a heavy loss.
Therefore, authorities need to block smuggled goods and have technical barriers to strictly control official imports to protect the domestic livestock industry as well as consumer health, Mr. Duong recommended.
