MLBA3: June / July 2008

 

 

 

 

Already one of the world's top meat exporters, Thailand added another feather on its cap late last year by inaugurating what is billed as Asia's biggest chicken processing plant. A joint venture between Betagro, Thailand's second largest meat industry player, and seasoning giant Ajinomoto of Japan, the new 1.2-billion-baht facility, located outside Bangkok in the province of Lopburi, has a current processing capacity of 24,000 tonnes a year, rising to 30,000 tonnes when it becomes fully operational.

 

The new plant, says Betagro executive vice president Nopporn Vayuchote, uses state-of-the-art technology and combines the expertise of both partners to produce a range of chicken products for the Japanese market, including deep-fried, roasted and charcoal-grilled chicken. With the new facility, Betagro

expects its chicken meat exports to rise from 4,000 tonnes a month to 5,000 tonnes or at least 50,000 tonnes a year, accounting for 16 percent of the country's total exports of 310,000 tonnes in 2007.

 

Feed-plant and equipment maker Buhler says it succinctly: "If you set out to climb Mount Everest, you will choose the best possible equipment to take along with you." The Thai meat export industry, along with the government, seems to have taken this dictum to heart.

 

 

Just recently, for example, food giant Charoen Pokphand Foods (CFC) launched an RFID traceability system for its pork production operations. Through RFID tagging, every pack of CP brand fresh-pork product that makes it to the supermarket can now be traced to its origin. It came a few months after Betagro, its closest rival, deployed its own traceability system.

 

These new high-tech food safety measures are just among the many changes now taking place in the industry. Since the 2004 Southeast Asian bird fl u outbreak, when 63 million Thai chickens had to be culled and export of frozen poultry meat stopped, moving swiftly in the industry.

 

Long before the outbreak, broiler development was largely in the hands of the private sector, dominated by backyard farms and small holdings, according to Viroj Na Ranong of the Thailand Development Research Institute. It had little, if any intervention or assistance from the government. But in 1999, as international trade of livestock--especially poultry--started to pick up, Thailand's livestock development department issued farm standards and regulations on animal welfare to comply with EU's regulations and requirements.

 

After the avian fl u epidemic, it virtually outlawed the raising of exportable broilers in open farms, putting hundreds of small farmers out of business.

 

Since closed farms are capital intensive, the government practically placed broiler export in the hands of large companies, away from small farmers and contractors. The government took a lot of heat from pundits and the public during that time. But in retrospect, says Viroj, it proved to be the perfect move. Subsequent bird fl u outbreaks spared the country of massive chicken culling, as affected areas could be easily pinpointed and isolated

 

Nopporn adds that only big business - and integrators like CP, Betagro and the like - can afford highly sophisticated and costly bio-security measures and technology. He cites the case of Betagro where IT and technology controls every aspect of production, from farm and feed management, slaughtering, cutting up to finished products.